


you make a fool of death with your beauty

by lostariels



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Fantasy, First Meetings, Grief/Mourning, Loss, Magic, Meet-Cute, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Necromancy, Reanimated Corpse, Zombies, kara is innocently stupid, lena has a soft spot, shopkeeper lena
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2020-12-09 13:40:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 33,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20995715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostariels/pseuds/lostariels
Summary: “You have to help me,” Kara hoarsely declared, a plea in the trembling words, which were the last thing that Lena wanted to hear at that moment.“No. I’m a shop owner, not a bloody necromancer,” Lena scolded her with a scowl, crossing her arms over her chest and drawing herself up in a haughty manner, “I sold you a product. I instructed you how to use that product - I even gave you a safety informational pamphlet, free of charge - and I advised you to seek professional help! What you did when you left this store is not my responsibility, nor is it any of my business or concern. Good day, miss.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NotThePendragonYouAreLookingFor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotThePendragonYouAreLookingFor/gifts).

> based on a tumblr post that i saw on twitter, and i apologise for not posting a url but idk what it was

When the young woman hesitantly stepped inside the gloomy shop, rusty bell clanging dully above the door, the nervous shuffling of a wary customer who felt out of sorts in the cramped space, Lena didn’t think anything of it. She got all sorts in her shop, looking for new age crystals, for decks of tarot cards and white sage. They were college students from the nearby college campus, drawn to the shop for the novelty of it as they avoided studying for finals, or mother’s on a health kick, cleansing their lives with the herbs and crystals. She’d get hippies and pagans, wearing flowing skirts and wearing false symbols that hadn’t held any power for a thousand years. 

Occasionally, she had a real customer, one that she took out to the back room, where the rare ingredients were stored, drawn to her shop by the sign in her window advertising for the real clientele. The ones who weren’t collectors or curious hadn’t come into the dingy store to gawk at a jar of bones or dried animal parts. She catered to the less innocuous types, who were there for less mundane specialties. Of course, there were the customers completely out of their depths too, who looked uneasy, like a caged animal as they stepped into the store. This woman looked like the latter.

Lena didn’t blame her; she knew her store had a strange reputation. It was part of the novelty of the old place. It was an oddity, both warm and cold all at once, the air heavy and perfumed with too many strange smells, musty and dusty and the cloying scent of something rotten, covered with the freshness of herbs and old paper. Some of the plants were black, others had thorns longer than they should have or leaves a bit too dark and shiny. A mortar and pestle sat on the scarred length of the counter, remnants of powdered herbs clinging to the bottom, right beside the bullfrog that never moved, but was very much alive as it puffed out its throat and occasionally croaked.

Shelves were stuffed full of old books, thick and heavy, bowing the shelves in the middle until it looked like the wood should’ve been groaning beneath the weight of them. Half of them were bound in soft leather, dyed blood-red or forest green, midnight blue or an inky black, silvery or cold filigree on the spines and covers, the thick parchment paper inside neatly penned with herbal remedies and household spells, solstice rituals and cantrips that would never work - not even for the right kind of person. Others were bound in old vellum, charred at the corners, heavy with cracked spines and pages stained with what looked like blood and other unsavoury smudges. The books held pentagrams and spells in Latin and Sumerian, Celtic languages older than a name could be put to, and ancient languages that Lena sometimes felt like she could pin down before they eluded her once more. She saved those sorts of books for the real customers, the ones who practised necromancy and summoning, healing and transfiguring. 

Other shelves were crowded with jars and bottles, filled with dried beetles and bits of bones, clippings of rare plants and seeds from foreign countries. Some of them had exotic tubers and mealworms wriggling, or shale, sand and bark from specific trees that grew in certain regions. All of them were neatly labelled, the same handwriting scrawled on each one.

Dusty boxes held scrolls or artefacts, daggers made from stone taken from an Aztec temple, gemstones from an Egyptian tomb that technically hadn’t been excavated yet, as far as the mortals were aware. In the back, in the tightly packed room, organised more carefully than the jam-packed mess of the shopfront, were skins from chimaeras, hairs from unicorns and cuttings from trees that grew golden apples. Phoenix feathers and dragon scales, talons from a griffon and golden blood from a god. All of it was rare, all of it collectable items that she hoarded, waiting for the right customer, not the false Wiccan teenagers dressed in black, pretending they knew the difference between the dried herbs hanging from the ceiling in the shop, and the cooking herbs their mother’s used at home.

It was important to Lena that she could tell the difference between her customers, so as not to waste her time taking the college students looking for an interesting story out to the backroom, showing them cracked human bones sold to her by a local gravedigger. The last time that had happened, they’d gone white and fainted in the cramped space. Lena had to revive them with smelling salts and send them on their way with a set of cat bones for their purposes. Or the time she’d accidentally inducted a hapless Wiccan into a coven because she’d thought the woman had been serious about her false magic. Since then, Lena had resolved to be a little blunter, a bit more direct, just as a precaution.

“Ex- excuse me,” the young woman said, blue eyes wide with fear, her spine no doubt prickling with unease. “I’m looking for- for some … ichor.”

Eyebrows rising imperceptibly, Lena gave the woman an appraising look, doubting her initial thoughts. Ichor wasn’t something that was frequently asked for, too expensive and hard to come by for most people, but she’d had a few dusty bottles in the back for years now, inheriting them from her mother when she took over the shop.

“Are we talking bile, or blood of the immortals?” Lena asked from behind the counter without meeting her gaze.

She was absentmindedly sorting the tourist crystals, essentially nothing more than pretty rocks, and definitely nothing to be used in a ritual, but she enjoyed the way they reflected the yellow light of the tallow candles scattered throughout the shop, and the chandelier coated in dust and cobwebs that shone deep amber, while shadows gathered in the corners. With her other hand, she read a book upside down, the mix of Coptic and Sanskrit flowing together in a strange way, making her fingertips tingle as she felt the magic on the yellowed pages. 

“Oh … do people really buy the other one?” the woman meekly asked.

Raising an eyebrow, Lena glanced up over the top of her book, lips twitching faintly at the corners as she gave her a scrutinising look, green eyes hard yet vaguely amused. She realised the young woman couldn’t have been much older than her, not yet even thirty, and Lena wondered what had brought her to the shop, to be asking about  _ ichor _ of all things. 

From a first glance look, she seemed nothing more than a novice, out of her depth with her doe-eyed look of panic. Her face was pale and clammy, bruises beneath her eyes that made her look anaemic and sickly. The clothes she wore were covered in dirt, although after a surreptitious sniff, Lena couldn’t smell the mildewy, rotten smell of a graveyard. The stooped set to the woman’s shoulders gave her an air of desperation that Lena saw in a few of her customers, and although she played ignorant, Lena knew what she was there for.

“Well,  _ you _ haven’t told me which one you’re here for yet, so …”

“Oh, um, the, uh, the- the second. The second one.”

Pausing for a minute, Lena debated whether or not she should just throw this young woman out, taking in the way she fidgeted with her fingers, the lines of sadness etched into her face and the air of hope. It was the hope that made her want to curl her lips, the thought of a witless young woman meddling with dangerous magic, completely out of her depths because she was clinging to the desperate shreds of hope too tightly to let go. In hindsight, Lena probably  _ should’ve  _ kicked her out and dusted her hands of the trouble, because there had never been any chance of something good coming from such a customer. The sort of high-grade, rare request, coupled with the low-grade industry awareness and general lack of knowledge that gave her a naive air, could only end in a few ways.

At best, Lena thought she might have a hero on her hands, someone trying to save the world, to do what little good she thought she could. Her mouth turned down at the corners at that notion as she thought about the last hero she’d sold to, a simpleton who had stolen one of the thick volumes on blood magic from out of the backroom when Lena’s back had been turned, leading him to summon a demon and get himself trapped in another dimension for two moons, before Lena had been approached by the local council and sighed and griped, before lending a helping hand in return for a few enchanted pomegranate seeds that would suspend someone between life or death. She’d made a small fortune off of selling those to the adventurous sorts, the kinds that sought out selkies and jinn and ended up with wounds seeping poisonous green toxins or their hands need to be grown back, the ones who were most likely to kill themselves in pursuit of lost or old magics.

But then her minute of hesitation passed because Lena was curious. In her shop full of curiosities and the unusual, how could she not be intrigued by what this stranger wanted? Especially after she had eluded Lena’s usual pigeonholing. Despite the air of desperation, the dishevelled appearance of someone hanging on by a thread, Lena was willing to take a risk to see the outcome of this encounter. Even if the new customer turned out to be another problem for her to clean up after, another broken spell for her to fix after the airheaded woman botched the ritual and sent it awry, Lena was curious now, and she was reckless once her curiosity had been piqued.

Jerking her head towards the locked door leading to the narrow corridor, through to the back room with its specialties, Lena gave her a perturbed look before winding her way around the end of the counter. “Come. And  _ don’t _ touch anything.”

The young woman quickly followed after her, nearly tripping over her mud-caked shoes in her haste, and Lena repressed the urge to roll her eyes as she pulled a ring of keys out of her pocket and unlocked the three different padlocks, pricking her finger and smeared a drop of blood on the stained, warded door frame, and then passed through into the dark hall. 

She knew her way by touch and habit alone, needing no light, and she could feel the woman’s anxious, shallow breaths behind her as they made their way down the corridor. It was narrow and boxes were stacked in precarious piles, the sound of creatures shuffling making her neck prickle with the feeling of being watched, and a shaft of light from the open doorway caught the flashing eyes of her cat sitting on the bottom step of the staircase leading upwards. Turning in the narrow space, Lena shut the door behind the woman, staring up at the pale, nervous face, finding the woman taller than her, despite her meekness, and plunged them into darkness.

It was only a few steps to the door at the opposite end, set into the right of the wall and locked with a dozen enchantments in languages Lena couldn’t even understand, her tongue wrapping itself around the muttered words, before she finally managed to unlock the door, hinges creaking and warped wood swinging inwards into blackness.

The air inside was close, thick and humid, yet cold enough to make her bare arms rise with goosebumps, her hair standing on end. Flipping on a light switch and flooding the small space with the harsh glow of a fluorescent light, Lena saw that the other woman looked positively terrified. Her pupils were blown out, her face ashen in the wan lighting, an almost electrified feeling to her as she stood stiffly, feeling the strange atmosphere, the ambience of magic and the unknown, unfamiliar territory that made her skin prickle with a cold sweat. As used to it as Lena was, the feeling was still tangible to her as well, but the blonde looked positively nauseous at the way the air seemed to caress her skin, each breath heavy and tasting faintly of metal and something organic.

Heeding Lena’s warning, she shifted from foot to foot, eyes darting around to shadowed corners, drinking in the space. It was bigger inside than it had any right to be, shelves strictly organised and cared for by Lena, who had come up with her own method for cataloguing the inventory once the shop had been turned over to her care. Shoulders hunched, the woman was careful not to touch anything, gripping the straps of her backpack as she swallowed thickly. 

Her mother had categorised everything in terms of astrology, temporal wind patterns and metaphorical alphabetisation. The place had been a mess. And that was a  _ loose _ approximation of her filing system. Lena opted for a more basic approach, everything categorised by whether it was animate or inanimate, an animal, mineral, herb and so on. Even then, it was arranged alphabetically and by item size. Despite the crowded nature of it, even more so than the shopfront, it was tidy. 

Leading the way to the back of the room, past rows of soaring shelves crammed so full that you couldn’t even see through to the other side, Lena grabbed a step ladder and glanced back over her shoulder, watching the girl carefully pick her way after her, careful not to brush up against any unsavory potions or cursed daggers. 

“So, what sort of ichor are you looking for? That’s a pretty broad term; I stock a lot of them.”

The woman made a vaguely strangled sound of surprise, eyes owlishly round as she opened and closed her mouth. No further response seemed to be forthcoming and Lena let out an exasperated sigh, depositing her step ladder before a particular shelf and climbing up onto it. Looking down at the pale face turned up to her, Lena gripped one of the shelves for balance and gave her a grand sweeping gesture towards the vials lined up on the shelf.

“We have,” Lena said with a sigh of mild impatience, before drawing in a deep breath and continuing, “gods’ blood,  _ demi _ god’s blood, vampire’s blood, gorgon’s blood and demon’s blood. Ichor for animating lifeless constructs, ichor for fertilising lifeless soil. Gods’ blood wine, gods’ blood willingly given, gods’ blood  _ unwillingly _ spilt, dragon blood - no generally called ichor, but you don’t seem to know what you’re talking about anyway, and the translations can be a bit iffy from some texts, and, well, dragons  _ are  _ immortal. We have … sap from an undying tree, sap from a  _ dead _ tree-”

Glancing back down at the customer with an expectant look on her face, Lena’s shoulders went slack with irritation at the bewildered look of alarm on the young woman’s face as she looked at the row of vials cluelessly. With another faint sigh, Lena gave her a grim look.

“What do you want it  _ for?” _

Flinching slightly, the woman ran her fingers through her unkempt blonde hair, before swallowing thickly and then clearing her throat, before she gave Lena a sheepish look. 

“Do you just have …  _ plain _ ichor?”

_ “Plain-” _ Lena started, before biting off her sharp words and giving her a hard look, “listen, you understand that  _ all _ of this is violently, extremely, fatally  _ poisonous _ , right? You can’t just … drink it and turn into a  _ god _ . It’s not going to get you high or give you powers or … whatever you want to get from it.”

“Even the wine?”

With a sharp look, brow furrowing and mouth turned down in a look that was far from impressed, Lena loomed over her from her step on the ladder, a faint sense of satisfaction running through her as she watched the woman shrink back from her.

_ “Especially _ the wine,” Lena slowly said, each word laced with warning.

Shuffling her feet some more, the woman bowed her head and seemed to be wrestling with some decision or another, before she reached into her pocket and brought out a folded scrap of vellum and offered it up to Lena, not meeting her eyes. It was old and stained, written in human blood with a tangy smell of something mildewy and off. Lena extended a pale hand.

“Give it here then.”

After a moment’s hesitation, the woman complied, and Lena plucked it from her hand and pored over the scrap of a spell, quietly snorting at the swirling calligraphy that usually accompanied a two-bit hack or minor cantrip that some lofty nobody who thought they were somebody had written up, gaining some false sense of self-importance through thinking they were a sorcerer or mystic. Lena wasn’t too sceptical though; she had enough books crammed in everywhere in both shops and her apartment to know that penmanship isn't an indication of whether a spell was good or bad. As it was, the swirly writing  _ was _ something, as far as she could tell.

Translating the ancient text - an archaic form Akkadian - as she went, Lena made a small sound of surprise and looked up, arching an eyebrow in a doubtful manner. “Don’t tell me you already have the phoenix ash.”

“I got some from that store, Menagerie’s. They didn’t- they don’t stock ichor. Apparently it’s not, uh, it’s not vegan? They told me you might, uh, that you might have it though.”

Pursing her lips for a moment at the mention of her nearby rival, although they  _ were _ quite friendly when they didn’t stock what the customer wanted, and would send them to each other’s stores instead, Lena gave the blonde woman an appraising look as she held the list back out. She didn’t raise the question of how  _ phoenix ashes  _ were considered vegan.

“So … you’re trying to raise the dead?”

With a choked sound of surprise, she looked up, eyes wide and a startled look on her face, as though she’d just been caught doing something she shouldn’t have. Although, with grim amusement, Lena considered the fact that perhaps she  _ shouldn’t _ be helping this inept woman with her crusade to bring back the dead. Clucking her tongue in a slightly condescending manner, Lena raised her eyebrows.

“Amateur necromancy's a good way to desecrate corpses and upset cemeteries, but it’s a shit way to  _ actually _ get anything worthwhile done.”

At the crestfallen look on the young woman’s face, Lena sighed and then turned on the step ladder. By memory and deliberation, Lena plucked a bottle of titan’s blood off the shelf and climbed off the ladder, before making her way back out of the room and sealing it back up, the blonde in close pursuit, all but fleeing the confines of the space. 

Once they were back in the shop, Lena rifled through a box of pamphlets beneath the counter, made by her friend, Sam, and plucked one out, before setting it down on the scarred wooden surface and sliding it towards the woman. She held the ichor clutched safely in her hands, giving her a cool look as the woman picked the pamphlet up with a trembling hand. 

“You have  _ pamphlets _ for this sort of thing?”

“A word of advice, if you want to raise the dead, you should really consider hiring a professional. There’s a lot of nuance to this sort of thing, you know? Takes a  _ real _ necromancer years to hone their craft. It’s easy enough to look a recipe up online, or dig one out of an old grimoire - and  _ Gods,  _ I know they’re expensive, believe me - but you only get one chance at a revival. You don’t want to botch it.”

“I- uh, no, I’m fine.”

“Alright,” Lena grudgingly agreed, giving her a cautious look, “but make sure you  _ actually _ read the pamphlet, okay? I don’t want you back here at the end of the week with some half-animated decaying zombie corpse shuffling after you and filling the place with bad energy.”

“Does that actually happen?”

Fixing her with a withering look, Lena leant on the countertop, “last time it happened I had to do  _ seven _ different cleansings and the place smelled like rotting meat for days.”

Rooting around beneath the counter, she pulled out a padded box and safely tucked the vial inside, after double-checking the seal. Closing up the box, Lena slapped a poison warning label on the side of it and then pushed it across the counter, the frog letting out a deep croak that made the woman took a wary step away from it.

“Now,  _ don’t _ let it get in contact with your skin - you should wear leather gloves or oven mitts when handling it, and absolutely, definitely  _ not _ latex ones. Don’t try to ingest it and don’t breathe in the fumes, or you might experience dizziness, disorientation, delusions of grandeur, and possibly momentary bouts of homicidal rage. As long as the seal is intact, the vial should outlive you several times, but after the seal is broken, the freshness is guaranteed for three days and viability for up to a week. After that, you’ll just be left with a vial of golden goop.  _ Please _ don’t ingest it after that, the toxins will fry your brain and I’ve already had a rough week and would love to not have to chase you through the city and stop you.”

Staring at the box with trepidation, the woman paused for a moment, before slowly nodding in understanding and reaching for the box. Without sounding too distrustful, Lena reached out a hand and placed it on top of the box, drawing it back slightly and clearing her throat pointedly.

“Now … there’s the matter of payment.”

“Oh!” the woman said, eyebrows rising and two spots of colour appearing high on her sallow cheeks before she slung her bag around and unzipped it, pulling out a purse.

With a soft groan, Lena closed her eyes for a moment and pressed the heel of her hand into her eye, before sighing. “Don’t tell me Menagerie  _ actually _ took  _ money _ from you.”

Blinking in a bewildered manner, the woman paused. “Um, yes?”

_ “Idiot,”  _ Lena hissed, pinching the bridge of her nose, before giving the woman a stern look. “Well, that’s not how business is done here. Anything in the front you can buy with cash or debit. Anything from the back requires  _ payment.” _

“I don’t understand.”

Scowling, Lena drummed her fingers on the countertop. That’s what she got for entertaining novices dabbling in things they shouldn’t be - they never knew the real value of what they were buying. Not until it was time for them to pay up. Dealing with first-time buyers was always tricky. Considering her options, Lena pursed her lips.

When Lena’s mother ran the shop, she’d get two years off someone’s life or the baby tooth of their firstborn child just for the pelt of a minotaur. Now, people wouldn’t even give her a day, or a solitary hair from their child’s head, rife with the suspicion that she was up to no good, or would sell it to any sort of riff-raff that walked through her doors. She knew firsthand that new buyers were even  _ more _ suspicious than older clients because they had no idea what someone would even be able to  _ do _ with baby teeth, or worse. 

“Blood for blood.”

The customer blanched at Lena’s blurted out offer, the only thing of relative value that wouldn’t unnerve a stranger  _ too _ much. Backing away from the counter, she stared at Lena with wide eyes. Waving a hand dismissively, Lena let out a quiet chuckle, rolling her eyes exaggeratedly.

“There’s no need to look so alarmed.”

Opening a drawer, she pulled out a clean needle and a syringe, arranging an empty vial on the countertop and raising her eyes suggestively, tapping a finger on the packaged ichor. 

“It’s a bargain, really. You get a bottle of ichor, which is  _ considerably _ harder to come by than human blood, I can assure you, and I’ll take a vial of your blood in exchange. A first-time buyer’s deal.”

“If it’s less valuable, why do you want my blood? I mean … what will you do with it?”

Her curiosity drew her closer, instead of making her bolt for the door, and Lena felt satisfaction bloom inside her as she smiled placidly, attaching the needle to the end of the syringe and explaining.

“It’s a new moon. Blood freely given, as part of an exchange involving life and death, in an attractive acquisition. It’ll be a quick sale, and seeing as they won’t know your name, and  _ I  _ don’t know your name-”

Looking a little flustered, cheeks turning pink, the woman extended a hand, a hesitant smile crossing her face, “oh, sorry, that was rude of me. My name’s Kara.”

Lena looked down at the extended hand and then back up at Kara, taking in the way her eyes creased slightly at the corners, transforming her haggard face into one of bashful youthfulness, and she gave her an incredulous look. Lips parted in surprise, Lena made a choked sound at the back of her throat, before closing her eyes and clamping her mouth shut. Exhaling sharply through her nose, she opened her eyes again and took Kara’s hand in her own, before yanking her forward, until they were inches apart over the top of the counter.

“You’re a complete and utter idiot, Kara,” Lena muttered to her, staring into the clear blue crystalline eyes of the young woman who so carelessly gave her name to strangers who were about to  _ draw her blood. _ “People can do you serious harm if they have your name and your blood. Did you know that? Lucky for you,  _ I _ won’t abuse that power. Now, do we have an agreed-upon price?”

She watched her swallow thickly and meekly nod her head, and Lena let out a derisive snort of laughter, before brusquely pushing up the sleeve of Kara’s shirt and sliding the needle into her arm, before Kara could so much as blink. She jumped though as Lena’s deft hands made quick work of drawing out the blood, taping a piece of fresh gauze to the site once she was done and rolling Kara’s sleeve back down for her with surprising tenderness. None of her regular customers would’ve accepted the price Lena had offered Kara; there was too much risk that she could use their blood against them. For all her skittish jumpiness, Kara didn’t so much as question her integrity.

Afterwards, Kara picked up her box and carefully slid it back into her bag, and Lena watched her go, giving her a curt nod as Kara half-heartedly thanked her and moved back through the dingy store and the bell chimed once more before she vanished into the bright sunshine beyond the grimy windows. 

She left Lena’s thoughts after that, as soon as her blood had been labelled and stored. Lena was more concerned with other things, like the fact that Menagerie was now selling phoenix ash. She had an exclusivity deal with a local supplier, and Lena brooded over the fact that he might’ve broken their agreement, the consequences of which could quite literally cost him his head if the wording of the contract Lillian had signed with him was anything to go by. 

It was the following day and Lena was sorting candles in order of use when the door banged open with the dulcet ringing of the old, tarnished bell, frantically tossed open in a way that made her spirits sink. Customers only entered her shop under such dramatics if it was a dire circumstance, and Lena’s brow furrowed with displeasure, already dreading the trouble that was about to sink its claws into the softer hearted part of her that left her incapable of saying no. 

Rounding a sagging shelf, Lena bit back a groan at the sight of the ichor customer -  _ Kara - _ the witless wonder who threw her name about and was foolishly undertaking necromancy. She stood pressed up against the door, covered in a myriad of bleeding scratches, eyes wide and haunted and a windswept look about her that made Lena think she’d run the whole way to the shop. She looked like she hadn’t slept all night, the bruise coloured circles beneath her eyes even more prominent in the gloominess of the shop as it made a strange mask of her face.

Lena sighed softly, reaching out to straighten a yellowed skull on a shelf, not quite looking at Kara as she acknowledged her. “Did you read the pamphlet?”

“You have to help me,” Kara hoarsely declared, a plea in the trembling words, which were the  _ last  _ thing that Lena wanted to hear at that moment.

_ “No. _ I’m a  _ shop _ owner, not a bloody  _ necromancer _ ,” Lena scolded her with a scowl, crossing her arms over her chest and drawing herself up in a haughty manner, “I sold you a product. I instructed you how to  _ use _ that product - I even gave you a safety informational  _ pamphlet, _ free of charge -  _ and _ I advised you to seek professional help! What you did when you left this store is not my responsibility, nor is it any of my business or concern. Good day, miss.”

Glancing over her shoulder, as if she could see out of the small arched window set into the wooden door, Kara swallowed thickly, her voice low with panic as she replied. “He’s after me.”

“Didn’t I specifically tell you  _ not _ to come back here leading a zombie behind you? Because I remember saying that.  _ Specifically.  _ Was I not  _ explicitly _ clear when I said that to you?”

Lena moved towards one of the clouded windows and peered out to the street, seeing no signs of movement, no shambling corpses in rotting clothes making their way towards her shop, drawn by the cataclysmic resurrection imparted on it by the reckless young woman looked slightly green as she pressed herself up against the door as if trying to keep the dead out. Despite the lack of movement outside, the hairs on the back of Lena’s neck were starting to stand up on end, and that was never a good sign.

“I- I followed the instructions. I read the pamphlet  _ twice. _ I don’t- I don’t understand what went wrong.”

“What went wrong,” Lena quietly snarled, “is that an amateur imbecile attempted to meddle with powers beyond her knowledge or skill, and has suffered the appropriate backlash and consequences of her hubris.  _ That’s _ what went wrong, madam. Now, kindly  _ get out of my shop.” _

_ “Please.  _ He’s- he’s not usually like this. He’s normally very gentle.”

With a suspicious look on her face, Lena paused for a moment. “You’re  _ sure _ you followed the instructions properly?”

Eagerly nodding, Kara gave her a pleading look, full of the desperation Lena had seen the day before. “Yes, to the letter, I swear. Well, I mean-”

Suppressing a sigh, Lena gave her a grim look, “what is it?”

“I mean … he’s a bit smaller than the, uh, the recipe accounted for, but I-I figured it’d work out,” Kara stammered.

“You tried to resurrect  _ children?”  _ Lena exclaimed, a demanding look on her thunderous face as her mind reeled. 

Undead children were the  _ worst _ , and Lena wasn’t in the mood to be dealing with a bratty seven-year-old that didn’t even have what little wits its age should’ve afforded him about him, on the accounts of him being a zombified corpse. A flicker of pity ran through her as she wondered if perhaps it was the young woman’s child - it’d have to be a young one too, perhaps even a toddler - but before Lena’s dread could surge, Kara was already shaking her head.

“No, no, not children. It’s- I- well ...“

Casting a glance at the tightly shut door, Kara pushed herself off it and nearly tripped over her feet as she rushed towards Lena, pulling a phone out of her pocket and pressing the button to light up the lock screen. It was Kara smiling as she held a black cat in her arms.

“That’s Streaky,” Kara informed her.

“You wanted to resurrect your dead  _ cat?” _ Lena spluttered.

Face flushing red with embarrassment, Kara tucked her phone back into her pocket and hunched her shoulders, head ducked down. “He’s a good pet. I mean- he was all I had after- after my parents died. And I know that, well, I know he’s a cat, and they don’t live for very long but …”

“Seven hells,” Lena cursed, scowling as she crossed her arms over her chest, a wave of pity washing over her as she looked at the apologetic figure standing pathetically before her. “You know, you might’ve been better off resurrecting your parents. At least it would’ve worked on one of them.”

“How’s it any  _ worse _ than bringing back a person?” Kara demanded, her eyes shining with angry tears as she jutted her chin forward in a stubborn gesture, bottom lip trembling slightly. “That’s what I’d like to know, because he- well, my cat’s nicer than most people. Well, I mean, he’d scratch sometimes, but he was  _ nice.  _ I loved him.”

Rubbing a hand over her forehead, Lena gave her a reproving look, her mouth set in a flat line. “No wonder Menagerie sold you phoenix ash for money.”

She knew that her rival had a soft spot for animal lovers, and silently scoffed at the soft-heartedness of her to sell an invaluable ingredient to this bumbling idiot who wanted to resurrect a  _ cat _ for nothing more than plain old ordinary American dollars. Shaking her head, Lena stomped her way towards the back door, before turning around and pointing a stern finger emphatically.

“Stay here, and  _ do not _ open that door, do you understand?”

When Kara hastily nodded, Lena threw open the hallway door after smearing blood on the doorframe and fumbling with the locks, and headed straight for the emergency cleansing incense inside the hallway. Striking a spark between her fingertips, Lena’s nerves settled at the sulfurous hiss of the wick catching and felt marginally better for it.

Closing her eyes, she sucked in a deep breath and weighed her options. The situation was either very bad or incredibly dire. Enough so that if she had time, she might’ve called Sam for reinforcement, or one of the regulars that specialised in this sort of business. Perhaps even a bonafide necromancer to set the bones of the dead cat to rest - for  _ good.  _ But she  _ didn’t _ have time, so Lena hurried down to the back room and let herself inside, gathering up three vials from a back shelf, a small wooden box, and a locked chest buried beneath stacks of vellum with pentagrams and archaic diagrams scrawled on them.

Back in the shopfront, she unloaded her haul onto the counter, eyeing Kara, who was still peering out through the windows. Feeling cross with her, Lena brooded as she sorted through the items.

“This is going to be  _ expensive.” _

Kara strayed back towards her, looking visibly pale as she swallowed thickly, throat bobbing. “You’re not going to- to take one of my  _ kidneys _ are you?”

Raising an eyebrow, Lena gave her a shrewd look. “Why? Are you offering?”

“No!”

“Then what good will it do me? Lena impatiently snapped, opening the smaller box.

Inside, a sleek, black, taxidermy cat glared up from the crushed velvet it lay on, the body of it immortalised by some ancestor or another, long before Lena had ever been born. It smelled of sand and mothballs and was veiled with a thin odour of death. She wrinkled her nose as she closed her hand around the brittle fur and lifted it gently out of the box, setting it upright on the counter, dark eye winking as she pointed it towards the door. It was strictly for ritualistic purposes, of course, but the fact that Kara seemed so unnerved by it was amusing to Lena.

“Is that- is it because  _ he’s _ a cat?”

Scoffing, Lena gave her a withering look. “He is most certainly  _ not _ a cat anymore.”

“But  _ why?  _ I don’t understand what went wrong!”

Taking a moment to pause and marvel at her, at her sheer ignorance of her own actions, Lena could do little else but open and close her mouth speechlessly, almost wishing her dear mother was there to give her a verbal lashing that would’ve flayed the skin from the poor woman’s sensitive skin. Drawing in a deep breath to calm herself, Lena wrinkled her nose again at the scent of incense, the taxidermy cat and the odour of fear that emanated from Kara. And there, faintly, the sickly sweet hint of rot. Time was short.

“Believe it or not, necromancy recipes don’t cater to one-size-fits-all. There are  _ rules. _ I selected titan’s ichor under the impression that you were going to use it on a  _ human.  _ The recipe you showed me was explicitly for a  _ human! _ That takes a lot of power, do you understand? Human lives are  _ expensive. _ You essentially poured the equivalent of jet engine to power a fucking tricycle. All of the excess power that should have gone into recovering a human life, like dear old mom or dad, spilled into your fucking _ cat _ , and then  _ overflowed. _ Do you have any idea how rare it is for someone to  _ overdo _ a resurrection spell? You just- you let loose a torrent of energy, with no particular purpose, into the space between life and death.”

Lena suppressed a shudder and looked at Kara, who had been hunching further and further as she spoke, almost as if she was trying to shrink into herself and escape whatever hellscape she had managed to create from her own cluelessness.

“Is that bad?” Kara asked, wincing slightly.

“Let me put this simply for you,” Lena said in a clipped tone, “it can summon unspeakable evils from beyond the veil of death to wreak havoc upon the mortal realm.”

“Oh.”

And then the scratching began. It was a faint sound, coming from the bottom of the doorframe, but Kara leapt behind Lena as if she’d been burned, eyes wild as she clutched an indignant Lena’s arms and peered over her shoulder. Lena was almost offended by the fact that this novice who recklessly dabbled with dangerous magic would even so much as touch her, but she also felt a slight clenching in her stomach, her heartbeat fluttering from having someone so close to her, fingers almost burning her skin through Lena’s shirt from the heat of the contact. 

“Oh God, he’s  _ here,”  _ Kara whispered, her breath tickling Lena’s ear. “He won’t be able to get  _ inside _ , will he?”

Setting her jaw, Lena fought the urge to shirk off Kara’s touch, finding that it was actually strangely pleasant to feel her warmth at her back, almost putting her on edge, alert and aware of the most minuscule details around her. Instead, Lena gently cleared her throat and straightened her spine.

“Now  _ that  _ would take some doing.”

Kara seemed to deflate slightly behind her, her relief palpable, and Lena fought back a dark laugh at how easily placatable she was as if her zombified cat wasn’t still scratching at the door, regardless of whether or not he could get inside the store. Turning around, Kara still holding onto her and moving as if she was a magnet, moving in tandem with Lena’s force, Lena unlocked the chest she’d hauled out to the front.

“Well … how  _ much _ doing, exactly?”

“Come here,” Lena ordered, instead of answering.

The sound of scratching paused for a moment, making Lena’s body go tense with anticipation, before it started up again, beneath one of the front windows instead. The taxidermy cat moved its head slightly, following the sound, and Kara let out a muffled yelp as she clapped a hand to her mouth in fright. Lena had to admit, the stuffed cat was eerie. Even more so when the lights flickered, the ominous effect lessened slightly by the bright sunlight that managed to stream in through the cluttered windows. 

A deep, strangled  _ meow _ followed, drifting through the shop, making Lena’s skin crawl at the menacing sound of it that seemed to come from everywhere all at once. With a shaking hand, Kara slung her backpack off one shoulder and rummaged through it, before producing a battered sandwich bag full of cat treats, clutching it tightly in one hand.

“Ah, give me that, won’t you?” Lena said, before scooping up the taxidermy cat, “and hold this.”

Trying to protest, Kara found the brittle fur of the stuffed cat pushed into her arms, while Lena snatched the bag of kibble from her. Eyes wide and mournful, Kara clutched the taxidermy cat to her chest, almost as if it was a stuffed animal used for comfort, before she realised what she was doing and made a small sound of disgust and thrusting it out at arm’s length.

“Why do I have to hold this?”

“Why does anyone in this shop do anything?”

Staring at Lena with a blank look on her face, Kara shrugged helplessly, a mystified look in her blue eyes. With a snort of laughter, Lena gave her a cold look.

“Because I fucking tell them to, that’s why. Now, stop asking stupid questions. I need to focus unless you’d rather spend the rest of your life, which I can assure you will be a  _ brief _ one, being scratched to pieces by your former cat.”

“I would not,” Kara conceded, backpedalling frantically as she shrank back against the counter, watching as Lena picked up the chest and two of the vials, along with the bag of cat food.

The lifeless cat in Kara’s hands tilted its head towards the far right, and Kara made a small squeak of fear, the scratching intensifying as several yowling  _ meows  _ followed. The putrid smell of rot and death was getting strong - strong enough to unnerve Lena. Even Kara seemed to notice it, because when Lena cast her a sideways look, ensuring that she wasn’t going to interfere and make matters worse, her nose was wrinkled with disgust.

Kara caught her eye and gave her a strained smile, face pinched with worry even though she was trying to put on a brave face. It was almost admirable, Lena thought, and perhaps would’ve been more inclined to admire her more if she wasn’t the sole reason they were in that mess in the first place.

“He didn’t smell this bad when he was just dead,” Kara weakly mentioned.

Ignoring her, Lena uncorked one of the vials, breaking the seal with great care, as she gave Kara a pointed look. “This is lich ichor. It’s been in my family for more than four  _ hundred  _ years. The only comparably valuable substances you could barter for it would be your still-beating heart, your firstborn child, or your immortal soul.”

Stepping into a specific point in the room, where a faded circle had been carved into the dark floorboards of the place, Lena spilled a handful of drops around her feet. Kara flinched as each droplet fell and Lena stared at her as she closed the vial again, holding up the second one.

“The is tincture of Night Phlox. It comes from an acquaintance's garden; he likes to overcharge for it, and I  _ intensely dis _ like having to replace my store of it.”

With a flourish, the casual flick of her wrist, Lena tossed it at the floor, the vial shattering and the rich, deep purple contents pooling around her. Then she reached into the chest and grabbed a handful of the contents.

“What-” Kara started to say, before swallowing the rest of her sentence.

The taxidermy cat looked up towards the ceiling, craning its stiff neck a little awkwardly in Kara’s arms as she swallowed thickly, and Lena slowly glanced upwards, towards the tiny window above the door, where a dark shadow clawed at the warped glass. Cat’s, of course, were good climbers, and this one had no reservations about clinging to the old bricks of the store and scratching at the wood, right at the edge of the windowpane, searching for any sliver of an entrance. The shop was soon filled with the cacophony of the cat’s twisted cries. 

And then a loud bang and the sound of something smashing, the shards falling to the floor. It was the window. The crystals on the shelves started to vibrate with the energy that seeped into the room, and one of the display books and a deck of tarot cards were upended. Lena glanced sideways at Kara.

“That’ll need to be replaced too.”

_ “Shit.” _

Knowing that the cat was someone inside, Lena peered through the gloom, searching the dark corners with scanning eyes, before out of the corner of her eye, she saw something dark through the shadows of the bottom shelves. Carefully, she scattered the handful of dust she clutched in one hand, lifted from the old chest, into the circle at her feet, before raising the bag of cat food and shaking it.

“Here, kitty, kitty.”

Massive shadows loomed along the walls and the taxidermy cat turned and looked towards the far corner of the shop, towards its undead brethren, and Lena saw a set of glowing yellow eyes loom out of the darkness beneath one of the bookshelves. Shaking the bag of cereal, she crouched slightly, while Kara attempted to hide behind her.

In a rush, the former cat charged, moving in a dark streak of fur. That in itself wasn’t surprising, seeing as he was bleeding excessive energy into the boundaries between space and time, and was most likely acting as the vessel for more than one demon. Streaky made straight for his owner in a blur of rotting flesh, claws extended and eyes glowing maddeningly. Lena almost didn’t snatch the taxidermy cat away from Kara in time, but she didn’t manage a job like hers with poor reflexes - she’d wrestled her fair share of ghouls into enchanted boxes and nimble pixies back into cages.

With little time for dramatics and fanciful flourishes, Lena dropped the unnerving stuffed creature into the circle, watching as smoke billowed up from it and the smell of old bone dust made her nose tickle. From within the smoke, the taxidermy cat warped and twisted and then came to live, springing forward to engage the zombified cat in a battle that literally shook the foundations of the shop. Several crystals gave up and crashed to the floor in a tinkling crescendo, while Lena sighed heavily and turned to Kara.

“You’ll also be paying for those.”

By that point, Kara was clutching the back of Lena’s shirt, muttering an invocation for a God that Lena doubted she even believed in. At any rate, it wasn’t effective at all, and Lena was mildly surprised by the choice of Jupiter - it wasn’t a name invoked every day. Especially not when it was made by someone who, it was becoming swiftly apparent, didn’t actually know that was the name of a God and not just the planet. 

With bewildered irritation and weary amusement, Lena couldn’t help but wonder  _ where _ Kara had been getting her information from. If she’d actually had a guide, Lena thought they deserved to be dismembered very painfully for their complete and utter lack of a brain,  _ doubly _ so for passing that information on to the first naive, young soul to get sent their way. Lena had half a mind to find them and hex them into the next millennia. 

And then the cat was eviscerated. 

The  _ zombie  _ cat. The taxidermy cat turned towards Lena, who opened the rest of the chest and, before it could get any clever ideas, slammed the box on top of the beast. It took some work to get the lid closed, and she was sweating as she struggled with the growling old cat, but once it was shut, the box stilled and she was left breathing heavily amidst a cloud of old dust and a few noxious fumes from spilt jars and potions.

Setting the chest down heavily on the counter, Lena swiped an arm across her forehead and regarded her customer with an expectant air, thinking that she’d be faced with gratitude or some small amount of awe. It hadn’t been as easy as it had looked, mind. But instead, she found Kara staring down at the mangled corpse of her former cat with a look of utter grief etched onto her face.

In Lena’s line of work, she saw a lot of grieving people, a lot of desperate or remorseful, and even angry people. Mostly just the curious, but she had a knack for picking out the genuine ones. But there was the young woman she’d thought had been a witless wonder, covered in dust and nasty scratches, looking like she hadn’t slept for a week and in need of a good meal, and there she stood,  _ genuinely _ distraught over the mutilated body of the cat that had been trying to kill her not even two minutes ago. She looked like someone on the receiving end of such a devastating blow that Lena couldn’t help but pity her, her heart softening just a fraction.

With a sigh, she scooped up the corpse in a gentle manner and Kara followed the movement of it, a dejected look on her face as she stared at Lena with tearful eyes.

“Where are you taking him?” she hoarsely asked, voice cracking slightly.

“Failed resurrections need to be carefully disposed of. Unless you want them twitching their way through lingering unlife and potentially getting back up again.”

Kara hung her head in defeat, shoulders slumping beneath the weight of her failure, while Lena unlocked a case beneath the old cash register.

“I, um, well, I guess … does this mean you own my soul now?” Kara asked, her voice flat and emotionless in light of her loss.

With a blank look, Lena arched an eyebrow. “Are you offering me your soul?”

“No!”

With a sharp sigh, Lena rolled her eyes,  _ “oh _ , will you please  _ keep up!  _ I can hardly accept what you won’t offer, can I? Have I not made that clear yet?”

Muttering to herself from behind the counter, she pulled out a long, slender box, an old fire lighter that sparked in her hands, a few other key ingredients, and set them all into the box, alongside the dead cat, its fur surprisingly soft, even if its body was stiff with rigour mortis and difficult to manoeuvre into the narrow box. Lena didn’t mention the cost of it all.

“Well … I mean … you said I had to pay.”   
  


“And you do,” Lena brusquely replied as she worked, “but  _ how _ you pay is not solely to  _ my _ discretion. What do you take me for? A bully? A  _ thief?  _ If anyone has been unfairly harassed and robbed here, it is undoubtedly  _ me.” _

With a flick of the old lighter, Lena set the box on fire while Kara scrambled back, her face spasming with pain. 

The fire went out two seconds later, with the gentle whiff of smoke and the sweet, flowering smell of fading, fetid rot. Satisfied, Lena nodded and opened the box, moving quickly to catch the living, squirming cat that immediately tried to spring out of the box. Cradling him in her arms, Lena stroked the dark fur and smiled faintly as she eyed Kara, who let out a gasp. It was a  _ pleased  _ gasp too, one that made a warm feeling spread through Lena’s chest, pleased with herself for being able to elicit such a reaction from someone because of the kindness she had done.

“Streaky!”

Handing her cat back to her, Lena watched as Kara reverently held him in her arms, the cat nosing her chin and rubbing himself up against her jaw as he purred loudly. Lena averted her gaze when Kara started to cry, and set about cleaning up the mess on her counter, not even bothering to look at the state of her shop at the moment.

“You-” Kara managed to choke out, before falling silent.

“You know, it would’ve been much cheaper just to mention this all upfront,” Lena softly chastised her, “consider this a warning, alright? Be a little more careful in the future.”

Kara nodded eagerly in agreement, wiping at her cheeks with an air of embarrassment about her as she let out a weak chuckle. Swallowing thickly and then clearing her throat, she gave Lena a questioning look.

“But … how do I pay?”

She sounded more resolute this time, instead of despairing at the idea of Lena taking something personal from her, almost as if she thought her soul was a worthy enough trade for the life of a common housecat.

Pulling out a chipped teacup and a dusty glass, which she wiped with the bottom of her ruined shirt, Lena pulled out a labelless bottle of murky green liquid and added a splash to both glasses, watching as steam hissed from the surface of them. Taking the glass for her own, she took a sip of the burning liquid, feeling a little strength and resolve flood back into her shaky body, and nudged the other glass across the counter.

Propping her feet up on the scarred surface, Lena exhaled fully and then gave Kara shrewd look. A  _ true _ look. She saw right through her, completely, through to the white pureness of her heart, and the grief in her eyes. 

“The resurrection is free,” she decided.

“Oh … thank you,” Kara said, her voice laced with genuine gratitude and warmth as she sank down onto a stool that essentially appeared out of thin air on the other side of the counter, reaching out for the drink Lena had poured for her. “Um, what is this?”

“Whisky.”

Kara took a tentative sip, and Lena continued as she watched colour and vigour return to the blonde’s face, her eyes brightening, cheeks pinking and skin looking a little more healthy as the bags faded. 

“With a few drops of a rejuvenation potion. Hence, green.”

Nodding, Kara drained the rest of hers in one gulp, before Lena added another splash to it, and then her own for good measure, eyeing the cat which had now curled up in Kara’s lap and had its eyes shut, purring as its whiskers quivered. Apparently, it  _ wasn’t _ always a screeching corpse out for revenge.

“And the- the other stuff?”

Fixing her green eyes on Kara, Lena gave her a small smile of understanding, seeing the stooped effects of grief that even a cat couldn’t take away, and she withdrew her feet from the counter and leant forward, propping her elbows upon the stained wood.

“Your parents, they’re-”

“Dead, yes.”

“Tell me about them,” Lena softly commanded, her expression turning tender and sympathetic, “that’s my price.”

Kara swallowed thickly, giving her a curt not as she seemed to deflate in her seat.

“Will that- will that bring them back?”

Lena felt a stab of pity at the hopeful note in Kara’s voice, and didn’t have the heart to tell her that no, they couldn’t be brought back. Not unless she wanted the shambling corpses of them trailing around after her, flesh falling off the bones and no conscience left to make anything of. If they were fresh corpses, Lena could give her the ingredients, perhaps even give her a hand so disaster didn’t follow her back to the store again.

But all she could do for the young woman was bring them back for a moment, in thought and memory, perhaps in a moment of laughter as she recalled something she’d thought she’d forgotten. To bring them back for even a moment for her, to relive all the warm memories of her childhood and perhaps even smile fondly, just once. That was all that Lena could do for her, and it was all the payment she needed.

Reaching out, she gave her a small smile and rested her hand on top of Kara’s, feeling the warmth of her skin, solid and real and alive, and gave her what little hope she could.

“For a little while.”


	2. Chapter 2

The blustery day made Lena hunch her shoulders and cross her arms over her black coat as she stormed across the college campus like a bat out of hell, coat flaring out behind her, heavy boots clomping on the cracked sidewalk pitted with weeds, her face a scowl of thunder that made anyone in her path give her a wide berth. The locator spell had been easy, a drop of the vivid, innocuous of drop blood dripped onto a yellowed vellum map of the town, old paths from centuries ago when the place had first been colonised crisscrossing beneath the newer streets and subterranean tunnels, the ley lines of power and the nexus’ of power at crossroads.

The little drop of red blood rippled across the map, seeking out the location of its owner as Lena pored over it, the length of it spread out across the long, scarred counter, the curling corners weighed down with a lump of obsidian rock salt, the grimy mortar and pestle, three books and her elbow as she propped her face up in her hand. Whispering in the long-dead language of Akkadian as she whispered the locator spell, the droplet had finally stopped at a building in the nearby college campus. 

Grabbing her coat and locking up the gloomy shop with a sharp warning for the particularly volatile and contrary bones of the old place, the warped floorboards groaning in protest as the piped shuddered inside the walls. Snapping her fingers, she watched the whole place seize, tensing as it seemed to shore itself up for a moment, and with a last warning, she stepped outside. The day was grey and the wind ruffled her hair as she locked the door with a quick cantrip and activated the wards, which lowered a latticed grill into place over the shopfront. 

The campus wasn’t too far, so Lena decided to walk, her hands buried in her pockets as one of them caressed the small vial tucked inside, a brooding look on her face as she walked past a thrift store, vegan café and an old music stores that supplied Lena with her vinyl’s in exchange for an under the counter blend of Firemoss and oregano hand-rolled cigarillos that induced the most wonderful hallucinations when smoked. She made a pretty penny off the college students on the weekends.

Crossing the street at the intersection near the music store, listening to the rumbling sound of Pink Floyd behind the closed doors, Lena cut down a dirty alley overflowing with trash and brown puddles of rainwater, graffiti sprayed all over the walls in vivid colours, including a few tags and magical symbols that belied the mundane nature of some of the pieces. She could smell the magic crawling over the place but didn’t see any of the usual crowd that lingered amidst the trash, swapping scraps of paper with spells scrawled on them in dead languages, swapping drugs for rare magical herbs, amulets and charms for quick cash - most of them knock-offs that Lena would never even consider selling in her store. Mostly, they were the vagabonds and derelicts with touches of magic, or looking for an in to the fringe world that they were vaguely aware of.

Passing through blocks of student housing, rundown warehouses converted into loft apartments, art galleries and dingy rave dens, tattoo parlours with neon lights and boarded up windows. One of them was a place that Lena frequented for her own ink, done by the young warlock with purple hair and a batch of black nightshade ink that imbued her skin with magic specific in binding, hexing and cursing. The whorls of black ink and archaic symbols that flowed down her left arm and across her chest and shoulder blade was hidden beneath her thick coat as she hurried along, on a mission.

Eventually, she’d made it to the campus, onto that cement path full of weeds as the wind snatched at her, and while she’d memorised the map to the campus, Lena realised she had no idea where to find the correct building in the sprawling mass of buildings. Some were red brick and old, with stone pillars and gable roofs, while others were squat concrete and glass, architectural feats that looked ugly and featureless to Lena’s appraising eyes. 

Looking for some sort of welcome centre, she ended up flinging her arm out in front of the next student that tried to give her a wide berth. The young guy looked at her with wide, fearful eyes, looking gawky and lanky, still struggling with a bout of acne as he hurried along with an armful of books clutched tightly to his chest. Turning her head to the side, Lena cast him a cursory glance, lips twitching slightly as her eyes burned into his.

“You,” she drawled, “is there a student centre?”

He nodded quickly, meek and eager to leave and squeaked a reply as he pointed across the green to a building sitting across from the library. Curtly thanking him, Lena turned from the path and cut across the green, passing beneath elm trees dotting the open space as students lounged in the shade, reading classics before lectures, or typing furiously away on laptops as they soaked up the meagre sunlight from the overcast sky. Brimming with annoyance, Lena’s aura rippled around her and drew the attention of everyone in the near vicinity as she stalked past, tearing open the door to the student centre and stepping inside.

There was a queue of two other people, both of them sitting on fold-out chairs along the windows as they waited to speak to the old lady at the counter, a grey cap of curls and a pair of glasses attached to a beaded chain. Ordinary. Breathing in the industrial smell of stale air from the vents and cheap carpet, Lena quietly took a seat beside a young girl chewing on the end of a pen, her lips stained blue with ink.

Restless and cranky, Lena had to wait half an hour before it was her turn, and she stood quickly as the girl brushed past her, giving her an odd look as she took in Lena’s multiple piercings and the assortment of strange charms hanging around her neck. Quirking an eyebrow, Lena gave her a knife-thin smile as she stepped past her, clunky boots quiet on the carpet as she stepped up to the desk and looked at the old woman.

“Hi, I’m looking for someone on campus. I was wondering if you could help me.”

“Are they a professor?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe a student,” Lena guessed.

Wrinkled mouth puckering, the old woman gave her a grim look of helplessness, “sorry, dear, I’m not allowed to disclose personal records.”

Rankling at the words, Lena quietly sighed and gave the woman a strained smile, nodding as she fumbled through the pockets of her coat, her fingers wrapping around a cold silver coin. 

“Nevermind then. Thanks for your help.”

She turned around and paused, before bending over and pretending to pick something up, holding the coin in her fingers as she straightened up and turned around.

“Someone must’ve dropped this.”

The old lady reached out as Lena held the old  _ siglos  _ coin out for her to take. It was from the Achaemenid Empire, in the time when Darius I ruled. The uneven silver coin was stamped with a king with bow and arrows on one side, the edges worn and smoothed with millennia of use, passing down through the hands of power - sometimes lost, until found again - until Lena had been gifted it on her sixteenth birthday. A gift from her brother.

It was a talisman, of a sort, imbued with spells of compulsion by the Zurvanic priest who had cast the coin with alchemy and esoteric knowledge lost to the past. Lena sent a prayer of gratitude for the Magi, long since turned to dust, who had cast the coin as the old lady’s fingers brushed the metal. Reaching out, Lena’s fingers encircled her withered wrist as she leant in close, her green eyes piercing and captivating.

“I need a list of every person on this campus who goes by the name Kara. I’m going to need their schedules, locations and a map,” Lena slowly said, her voice low and thick with compulsion as she leant in close, the smell of talcum and lavender making her nose tickle. 

“Try it with a K and a C,” Lena said as she backed up, letting the coin glide against the woman’s fingertips as she freed her, hands in her pockets again as she looked around the small office.

There was a notice board full of fliers and notices, and she dawdled before it, snagging a number for a lost poodle, memorising the picture so she could scry it later and collect the reward. She coiled the strip of paper around her finger as she waited, listening to the old woman type away on the clunky keyboard as she read the notices for on-site counselling, free yoga classes on the green on Thursdays and the deadline for class sign-ups, three weeks out of date.

“Young lady?” the woman called out after a few minutes.

Glancing over her shoulder with an expectant look on her face, Lena smiled faintly as she walked back over to her, leaning on the counter as her dark hair swung in her face and the woman put down a sticky note with three names written on it. Two Cara’s and one Kara. 

“These two are students; here are the locations of the tutorials and lectures they should be in at the moment. And this is one of the professors’ in the Anthropology building. I’ve circled the buildings on the map.”

“Thank you.”

She slid the folded pamphlet towards Lena, who picked up the sticky note and pressed it securely onto the pamphlet as she picked it up. Pausing, she narrowed her eyes at the old woman, talking in the milky opaque film of her eyes as cloudy cataracts settled in with age. Reaching over the top of the counter, Lena grabbed a pen and the notepad and scribbled down her address, before pushing it back across the desk.

“Come to this address; I have something for your sight.”

Without another word, she turned and barged out of the door, the window rattling in its frame, and unfolded the pamphlet to stare at the map printed on the back. Standing in the middle of the sidewalk, Lena figured out where she was and set off towards the nearest building circled in black sharpie. It was the Art and Theatre building and Lena mused over the idea of the young blonde earning a degree in the arts, trying to picture her playing the cello or flute or drama classes pretending to be a cat. 

Not that she knew the girl well, but it didn’t fit in her mind, and, as it was, it turned out to be a bust as Lena hovered outside the workshop room, heavy black curtains drawn across one side of the room, while mirrors lined the wall opposite the door. Peering through the window, she spied the blondes inside, but none of them were familiar, even though one of them was  _ definitely _ part succubus and might’ve been vaguely recognisable from a particularly blurry weekend around the spring solstice when Lena went on a three-day bender at an underground occult club. She’d been on a sour rose and nectar cocktail laced with absinthe, volatile and heady on the drink of the gods, and couldn’t remember much of it.

Musing, she burst through the nearest emergency exit and made for the next building. Business and Economics. The girl was supposed to be in a lecture if the old woman’s intel was correct, and Lena busted the lock on the locked room - why professor’s prohibited late attendance, she didn’t understand - creeping into the back of the room. It was dark and she couldn’t quite see, biting into the pad of her thumb hard enough to draw blood, wincing at the pain as she smeared it over the  _ Choku Rei _ charm hanging from one of the many necklaces around her neck.

Sucking on the small wound, she narrowed her eyes as power seeped through her, her vision sharpening as she concentrated the power of her Reiki energy in her eyes, colours blossoming to life as auras shrouded everyone in the room. Peering through the auras, Lena tasted the coppery taste of blood on her tongue as she slowly scanned the bowed heads of the students taking notes as a clip of some kind played on the projector. 

There was another ten minutes left on the lecture and Lena retreated outside, making her way back outside the room to loiter in the hallway so she could see the faces of the few people she’d narrowed it down to. There were five prospective candidates she was about to scare the shit out of if they turned out to be the Kara in question, and Lena’s mood turned blacker as she was forced to linger outside, impatient and cranky.

Eventually, the lecture finished and her search became futile. One was too young, one was actually a man with a stubbly beard and long hair like some nordic Viking, one of the blondes wasn’t  _ actually _ blonde but a mousy colour too dark, and the other two had the wrong features as they filed out of the lecture theatre. Biting back a sigh, Lena looked down at the last location on the pamphlet and joined the jostling flow of students.

Anthropology and Sociology. The old lady had written down the room number for the workshop, but hadn’t written one for the professor’s office, leaving Lena exasperated as she asked the person at the front desk of the building. It had taken a few minutes of back and forth before she managed to get the right person, a Professor Kara Danvers. Third-floor office on the east wing of the building.

Footsteps echoing on the cement staircase of the old brick building, Lena’s irritation was simmering with full force by the time she stepped out into a hushed hallway. Drifting past classrooms where muffled voices were shut behind, she glanced at the plaques on doors until she neared the end of the east wing. Professor Kara Danvers occupied the second-last room on the left of the hallway, and bristling with anger, Lena threw the door open, filling the doorway, despite her stature. 

Two faces turned to face her, one a startled student with dark hair who looked almost offended by the intrusion, and the other, the blonde.  _ Kara _ . Grey-faced and fearful, looking almost as if she’d rathered death itself burst through the door as she shrank back in her chair.

_ “You!” _ Lena snarled, taking a step inside.

“That’ll be all, Nia,” Kara squeaked, “I’ll see you in class.”

The young girl gathered up her bag and squeezed past Lena, who stood brimming with energy inside the office. It was barely better than a supply room, with a dented metal desk occupying most of the cramped space, a scratched blue chair behind it with tufts of stuffing poking out of the upper corner. The walls were a sickly yellow, the paint peeling off in places, and the carpet a commercial brown that, not to mention the water stain gracing the ceiling, made worse by the harsh light of the fluorescents.

Bent blinds let in the pale sunlight, a few limp looking plants soaking up what little they could along the windowsill, and a filing cabinet stood beside a sagging bookshelf full of volumes on everything from agricultural practices and burial customs to linguistics and gender roles. Streaky, the resurrected cat, was curled up on top of the filing cabinet, eyes yellow and watchful. 

Slamming the door shut behind her, Lena took a step across the small space, filling it with her buzzing tension as she reached a hand into her pocket. Kara rose to her feet, hands held up defensively before her as she opened her mouth to plead, but before she could get out a stuttering word, Lena shoved the vial of blood under her nose and grabbed her by the front of her cardigan, gripping it tightly.

“What the  _ fuck _ is this?” Lena snarled, her eyes flashing dangerously.

“I-  _ what?” _ Kara said after a brief pause, her eyebrows furrowing together as her blue eyes clouded with confusion. “I don’t know. Blood?”

_ “What are you?”  _

“I, uh, I’m an anthropology professor. I- I teach cultural anthropology.”

Mouth twisting in a snarl, Lena pulled her closer, her eyes narrowing as she ground her teeth together.  _ “Don’t lie to me _ . I sold this to a client and they burnt their fucking eyebrows off! They’re lucky it wasn’t their head. I traded you for this under the assumption that you were  _ human!” _

Blinking in surprise, Kara drew back as much as she could while still in Lena’s grasp, her lips parting as her eyes widened. A faint, airy laugh fell from her lips as her forehead creased with bewildered amusement.

_ “What?  _ I- I  _ am _ human. What are you talking about?”

Staring at her for a long moment, Lena slowly relinquished her grasp on her, fingers uncurling one by one, and she sat down heavily on the rickety metal chair placed before the desk. It creaked and shuddered as Lena shifted it closer to the desk, taking up more space than her physical form should’ve in the small space. Legs spread, she leant forward as Kara slowly sank back down onto her chair, looking a bit peaky as she tugged at the collar of the starched shirt she was wearing beneath the periwinkle cardigan.

“Listen, it doesn’t have to be difficult,” Lena continued, her voice brittle and tense as she tried to smother her anger. “Just tell me the truth.”

Mouth opening and closing, Kara wordlessly shook her head as she shrugged helplessly. Hands spreading as she gave Lena a sheepish smile, looking a little faint as she tried to muster as much strength as she could, Kara drew in a ragged breath.

“I genuinely have no idea what you’re talking about. Maybe- maybe they just … got the spell wrong?”

“No, that’s not it,” Lena flatly replied,  _ “I _ tested it when they brought it back in clamouring for my  _ head _ for selling faulty merchandise. Do you  _ know _ how much trouble I could get in for selling counterfeit products? Or even for  _ wrongfully _ selling them. I don’t want to be dealing with the Council right now, and not to mention if they alert OHS for a safety hazard and have me fined for the practice of malfeasance. I’m a small business owner, okay? I can’t risk losing clients because  _ somebody _ gave me her blood in exchange for her cat’s life, and didn’t disclose her classification. So … the truth. Out with it, if you please.”

“I don’t-”

With a rough sigh, Lena reached forward for the name plaque on the desk and brusquely turned it around, setting it firmly down in Kara’s line of sight. Giving her a stony look, Lena sat back in her chair, the metal groaning in protest at the movement.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Lena said in a clipped tone, her voice coloured with honesty as she calmly stated the fact. “But I have your full name; I could make it  _ very _ painful for you. What are you? A lesser demon? Nephilim? Black sorceress? Unseelie?”

“Are all those real?” Kara asked, looking a little unsteady as her eyes grew unfocused behind the lenses of her glasses. She reached up to adjust them, blinking rapidly. “Goodness.”

Looking at her with disbelief, Lena made a choked sound of annoyance, raking her fingers through her hair as she muttered a favourite curse of hers in Illyrian. A pucker forming between Kara’s eyebrows, she cocked her head to the side and reached for a coffee cup on the table, taking a quick sip as she gripped it in a white-knuckled hand.

“Listen to me,” Lena said, her voice softening as it trembled slightly, her eyes wide and insistent, “whatever you are, your blood packs a shit tonne of power. If you’re in trouble, on the run from someone or mixed up in something … I don’t give a shit. That’s your business, and you can leave me out of it and play your little naïve bit. But one of my clients was nearly blown to pieces, and you owe me payment.”

“But … my blood-” Kara said, a forlorn look on her face.

Pushing the vial of blood across the table, Lena gave her a hard look, “I’m returning it to you, which means you owe me a debt, and I  _ will _ collect it. And if you don’t pay up-”

Picking up the name plaque and turning it back around to face her, looking at the letters stamped into the metal, Lena gave Kara a thin smile as she primly set it in the middle of the desk and tapped a finger on it.

“I know your name.”

Climbing to her feet with a groan of metal that had her concerned that the chair was about to collapse beneath her weight, Lena shook out her black coat like she was ruffling feathers, something almost corvine about her as she cast Kara a sideways glance.

“But … that’s not my birth name,” Kara slowly said, “will it still work?”

“What do you mean? You’re married or?”

Shaking her head quickly, Kara looked up at her with wide, blue eyes, “I was adopted as a child.”

“Adopted,” Lena said, the word clipped and bitter in her mouth as she considered the implications of that, before shaking herself out of her brooding thoughts and giving Kara a piercing stare. “It doesn’t matter; it’s your name.”

“Oh.”

Pausing in the middle of the cramped office for a moment longer, Lena wrinkled her nose as she looked around the place, taking in the scuffed walls and cheap carpet, the clunky computer on Kara’s desk and the wilting plants. Mouth turning down at the corners, she fixed the woman with a grave look.

“This office is a shithole.”

With a weak chuckle, Kara gave her a sheepish smile and shrugged half-heartedly, “yeah.”

Nodding, Lena turned and eyed the black cat lazily swinging its tail as it looked at her with one eye from its place on top of the filing cabinet. Taking a step towards it, Lena picked it up and cradled the docile creature in her arms, so different from the sinister thing reeking of death and juiced up on ichor that had wreaked havoc in her beloved store. Running her fingers down the inky fur covering its spine, Lena gave Kara a dark look.

“I’m keeping the cat. Consider it collateral.”

_ “What?  _ No!” Kara exclaimed, shooting to her feet with a look of panic spasming across her face. 

Her voice was fraught with anxiety as she made a step towards Lena, who gave her an indignant look, her eyes stopping Kara in her tracks. Throat bobbing as she swallowed thickly, looking at Lena with pleading eyes, innocent and naïve - perhaps duplicitously so - Kara twisted the hem of her blue cardigan in her hands as her shoulders slumped.

“Please,” she managed to get out, her voice strained and trembling as she begged. “You can’t just …  _ steal _ my cat.”

“I’m not  _ stealing _ it,” Lena flippantly replied, pausing for a moment as she deliberated and shrugged nonchalantly, “it’s just incentive for you to come to my shop. I want the truth and I want my payment for the supplies you bought for your failed resurrection. I stress again -  _ failed. _ This little kitty would be rotting in the ground if it wasn’t for me, so I take it as a personal slight that you would take advantage of the goodness in my heart and dupe me into accepting what most definitely was  _ not _ human blood.”

Pale and clammy, Kara’s bloodless lips opened and closed soundlessly, and there was an almost queasy look on her face that made Lena’s hard resolve soften momentarily as she stood there floundering. Tucking the cat safely under her arm, Lena gave Kara a wolfish grin.

“Right, well, best be off. I’ll see you soon, Kara.”

The splutters died behind her as she stepped out of the cramped office, Streaky letting out a morose yowl as Lena set off down the hallway, blinking rapidly as the Reiki energy coursing through her veins fizzled out and her eyesight dimmed. Everything blurred slightly, the crisp edges no longer standing out in sharp contrast, the colours muted and impossibly duller. She was mildly surprised that Kara didn’t come barging out after her, however, which left Lena stymied as she debated whether Kara  _ actually _ didn’t know the truth of her heritage, or if perhaps she just didn’t want to risk an altercation with a hedge witch who dabbled in more magics that Lena could even name. 

A little disgruntled that she had to wait, Lena carried on her way, stomping downstairs and out into the gale that assaulted her as she stepped through the emergency exit. It looked like it was about to rain, the clouds dark and stormy overhead, and she turned the collar up on her coat as she set a brisk pace through the campus. Hunger gnawing at her stomach as a headache pulsed behind her eyes from the side effects of the  _ Choku Rei _ charm, Lena took the main thoroughfare leading away from the campus and stopped at her favourite Chinese takeout store. 

The woman behind the counter was a  _ Tongji _ , a Tibetan spirit medium that occasionally frequented Lena’s shop when she needed supplies. There had been a particularly nasty situation two summers ago with a _ lìguǐ, _ a ghost of pestilence that had been drawn to the medium and brought its decay into the brightly lit restaurant and spoiled everything in the storeroom and freezers. They were acquainted, and Lena was well aware of the illegal gambling den run out of the back of the restaurant, occasionally joining for games of  _ mahjong _ and to scope out prospective clients for her store.

In perfect Mandarin, Lena ordered servings of chicken lo mein and sweet and sour pork, holding the cat in the crook of her elbow as she fished out a few crumpled notes from a coin purse and held them out to the woman. Standing beneath a red fan, breathing in the smell of ginger, sesame oil and fish from the loud kitchen visible through a window. A few college kids were grabbing a late lunch at a round table, and Lena could feel the _T_ _ ongji’s _ eyes on her. She wasn’t familiar with her name - they were rare things offered up to a witch, and most people in the den called her Roulette - but Lena gave her a curt smile.

“What’s with the cat?”

Shrugging nonchalantly, Lena’s smile grew. “Collateral.”

With the paper bag embossed with a red phoenix under one arm and the cat under the other, Lena left with a polite nod to the woman and a promise to order in some of the Balsam of Peru that the  _ Tongji _ used in consecrating burial grounds to put the particularly malevolent spirits to rest. Stepping back out into the dreary day, Lena cursed under her breath as fat raindrops pattered down on her dark head.

Hiding the cat under her coat, she cut down alleys and beneath a bridge where a group of  _ Dökkálfar  _ were smoking and smashing beer bottles with a baseball bat. All of them had pin-straight hair in varying shades, their faces long and angular, crimson eyes and pale green skin as they stood around in leather, looking for trouble. They were notorious for deceit and stealth and Lena knew more than one person who had been conned by the elves in deals gone wrong. She gave them a curt nod as their red eyes tracked her, their movements graceful and casual as they kicked around tins and muttered in elvish.

Crossing the puddles of water beneath the dried up bridge, Lena hiked up the steep incline covered in sparse grass and walked another two blocks before reaching the small shop. The outside was a faded black with worn red bricks leading to her apartment overhead and a small rooftop garden where she grew some of her own herbs and magical plants. It was unassuming from the outside, an eccentric shop of occult objects and crystals, a novelty to the curious humans, but the lattice of magic guarding the door was very much real to Lena’s eyes as she countered the spell and jimmied the stiff door before unlocking it.

The bell tinkled dully overhead, filling the cramped space with its chiming, and she narrowed her eyes as she stepped into the gloom, nudging the door shut with her boot and turning the sign in the window to  _ Open _ . Setting Streaky down on the floor, Lena sighed and walked over to the counter, setting down the paper bag and shedding her coat as she sat down heavily on the wooden stool behind the till. 

Steam wafted in her face as she unboxed the small white cartons and snapped the chopsticks in half. Digging into the sweet and sour pork with a relish, ravenous with hunger, Lena stilled at the sight of Streaky jumping up onto the counter and nosing at the lo mein. With a sound of indignation, Lena pushed him aside, her green eyes tracking the cat as he nudged her arm with affection, rubbing his dark head along the dark ink tattooed onto her pale skin. She let out a chuckle as he pressed his wet nose into her check, one paw braced against her shoulder, and then leapt down into her lap to curl up.

Manning the cash register as she scarfed down her food, Lena plodded through the rest of her workday. She served three more customers, two of them new age spiritualists, supporters of modern esotericism. One of them bought a book on the lunar cycles and the other a glass evil eye talisman. Those specific ones gathered in a bowl had no magical properties but were a popular purchase by the superstitious and gullible. It was different from the  _ Nazar  _ amulet Lena wore around her neck, cast from handmade glass by a Turkish family who had been in the business since the days of the Ottoman Empire. 

Her last customer had been a bounty hunter looking to stock up on wolfsbane. The  _ cthonic mercury  _ and  _ telluric fire _ properties of the herb made it a common staple for those wishing to travel along the ley lines crisscrossing the world, as well as being used in poisons against werewolves or giving power to those who desired to shift. She didn’t know what the broad woman with the scar running down her cheek and a sullen silence wanted it for; Lena just handed over the sachet of dried flowers and took the cash, the register rattling open. 

In between customers, she dusted shelves, rearranged products into neat stacks, reshelving books that had been put back in the wrong places and restocking the low supplies. The bell chimed every so often with curious people who wanted to have a look around, picking up crystals or boxes of tarot cards, breathing in the ancient smell laced with incense and herbs as they wandered through the old place. There was something about the hushed darkness of the shop that called to Lena’s soul, something that she saw wash over her customers as they crept through towering shelves and display cabinets, talking in hushed voices, before leaving the strangeness of it behind as they stepped back outside.

Eventually, after topping up small sachets of black hellebore kept behind the counter in the pigeon-holed wall, full of everything from charms, seeds, balms and talismans, to dollar protection spells and velvet bags of hand-carved runes she ordered from a dwarf who lived in Iceland. She kept a few of her own personal items stashed behind it too, and after flipping the sign in the door, she walked over to the wall and pulled out a wide ceramic bowl from the cupboard beneath the honeycombed wall.

It was made from a slate-like clay found within the hills of the Acoma Pueblo, sixty miles outside of Alberquerque in New Mexico, where an indigenous potter crafted vases and bowls - some ordinary and imbued with blood, sweat and tears or the task, and others imbued with a safely guarded secret to created scrying bowls. The one Lena held in her hands was a scrying bowl, the thin sides painted in geometric patterns or oranges and white, while the inside of the bowl was black. 

Setting it carefully down on the counter, she pulled open another cupboard, where a small fridge held a selection of chilled products that needed to be kept in cold conditions. Pulling out a glass bottle of goat’s milk, Lena shut the door and unscrewed the cap, pouring the creamy liquid into the bowl. The whole gallon went in and Streaky sniffed at it as she screwed the lid back on and set it aside. Unearthing a small brown bottle from a pigeonhole, Lena drew some of the black substance into the pipette and let it drop into the milk, watching as dark clouds blossomed on the surface.

Lighting a few sticks of Baphomet incense to help aid with awakening the knowledge and magical energy of the shop, Lena breathed in the muskiness of the fenugreek and the darkness of the juniper and the faint freshness of lemongrass as a sickly green smoke formed a cloudy haze around her. Slipping the red plastic lighter back under the counter, on top of the rolls of paper for the receipts, an assortment of pens stolen from businesses and given to her by clients, as well as the half-eaten packets of snacks and paperback novels Lena occasionally read through while wasting the days away. 

Finally, with the little mallet in hand, Lena stood behind the counter, before the ceramic scrying bowl, Lena breathed in the heady smoke as she set the mallet into the mixture of goat milk and the scrying philtre, watching the black merge with the grey in a marbled effect. Curious, Streaky climbed up onto Lena’s shoulder, the little black cat balancing on his perch as he stood up straight and watched the eddying mixture. Stroking him with gentle fingers, Lena smiled and set the mallet to the edge of the ceramic bowl. A clear ringing sound echoed through the shop, wavering as the note hovered in the air.

Circling the rim of the ceramic bowl with the mallet, Lena closed her eyes as she let herself fall into a trance-like state, breathing in the dry smoke as the continuous notes dragged her deeper and deeper down, the weight of the cat anchoring her to the spot. Quietly, her voice a low burr, she started murmuring an old scrying incantation in Pictish, with the image of that white poodle at the forefront of her mind as she set about locating it. Lena was on the verge of an answer, the hairs on her arms rising with anticipation as her mind spiralled through a fog-induced haze to the answers she was seeking when the door was jerked open with a disjointed clanging of the old bell that was at odds with the spell.

Stumbling for a heartbeat as she rose up out of the trance, Lena fell back into the rhythmic ringing as she kept her eyes closed and face impassive, trying to string out the thread of magic long enough for her to tell the intruder to leave without breaking off the scrying. 

“We’re closed.”

“What are you doing?” a familiar voice asked.

Scowling, Lena cracked one eye open and stared at Kara, who lingered just inside the door with a mildly concerned look on her face as she took in the hedge witch wreathed in smoke with her cat sitting on her shoulder.

“Trying to find a poodle,” Lena curtly replied.

She closed her eye again, grasping at the threads as she tried to conjure up the location that would project itself onto the surface of the bowl’s content. Muttering in Pictish, she ignored the creaking floorboards as footsteps neared the counter, standing ramrod straight as she drew in another ragged breath, the smoke making her throat ache and eyes sting.

“Do you always do magic in the middle of your store?” Kara asked.

With a heavy sigh, Lena let the mallet fall limply to the counter as her eyes snapped open, an exasperated look on her face as she took in the cautious blue eyes of the unassuming being before her. The thread of magic fell away like a rope cut loose from its moorings, and Lena placed both hands flat on the scarred countertop, watching Kara, who was studying the ink curling its way up the left side of Lena’s body.

“Yes,” Lena eventually replied, her voice brittle, “most of my clientele think it’s a sham. Some oddity to curate the appearance of witchcraft, like I’m some little Wiccan. It’s a novelty for them.”

“Hm.”

“Here for your cat?”

Kara quietly scoffed, her eyes drifting to the traitorous cat that contentedly perched on Lena’s shoulder, his purr reverberating through Lena as she gave Kara a wan smile. 

“I  _ would _ like him back, yes. What payment do you want? I’m guessing  _ not _ more blood.”

Tapping her chipped black nails on the counter, Lena pursed her lips for a moment, brushing dark hair out of her face and exposing the multiple piercings in her ear. Reaching up, Lena snagged Streaky from her shoulder and set him on the counter, fixing Kara with a suspicious look.

“On the contrary, I’d  _ love _ a vial of your blood, if I could figure out what you are. I think you over-paid last time, given the power in it. But I  _ was _ under the assumption you were a full-blooded human, otherwise, I would never have charged so steeply. Anyway, you’ve been refunded. I’d like proper payment, so … here.”

Picking up the chunk of obsidian salt she’d been using as a paperweight that morning, Lena brusquely handed it over to Kara and gave her a scrutinising look as she took it in her hands, a pucker between her blue eyes as she waited.

“Now what?”

“Nothing. I was just seeing if perhaps you were a demon; salt burns them.”

Spluttering, Kara heavily dropped the black chunk of salt onto the counter, a flush of anger creeping into her cheeks as she scowled at Lena. “What, so now you’re trying to  _ burn _ me?”

Rolling her eyes as she tsked, Lena gave her a mollifying look, her eyes clouded and stern. “It wouldn’t have been  _ that _ bad; you likely would’ve just dropped it anyway. It was a long shot, really. All but the weakest demons have black blood, and yours was  _ far _ too powerful to be anything but a full-blooded demon. At least that’s  _ one _ we can cross off the list.”

Sighing, Kara scratched Streaky under his chin as he stood on the counter, “why do you care so much?”

“Curiosity is a bitch. Lock the door; I’ll be right back.”

Picking up the brimming scrying bowl, Lena moved towards the door leading out to the special storeroom out the back and the staircase to her apartment upstairs and fumbled to fish a ring of keys out of her pocket. Unlocking the three different padlocks with her right hand as she cradled the ceramic bowl in her other hand, she pricked her finger on a shard of metal embedded in the frame and smeared a drop of blood on the already stained patch of the warded door frame. 

Easing open the door, she passed through into the dark hall and blindly searched for the small latch of the door beneath the stairs. Nudging it open wider with her foot, disturbing a stack of printed spells from underground sites that she hadn’t had time to check for validity - usually, they were nothing, just compiled gibberish for the frauds to play make-believe with, but occasionally something real turned up - Lena found the string for the bare bulb beneath the stairs and tugged on it, bathing the small space in harsh light.

There was a cracked sink situated beneath a small spotted mirror and a few boxes of products for the shopfront stored inside, and Lena tipped the contents of the bowl down the sink, before rinsing it out with the rusty water that stuttered through the shuddering pipes in irregular bursts. Her eyes were bloodshot in the aged mirror from the smoke that had dried them out, and she quickly splashed a handful of water in her face, before tugging on the string and plunging herself back into darkness and shutting the door once more. 

Back inside the store, Lena wrapped the ceramic bowl in a length of oilcloth and put it away in her cupboard, before fishing out a sparkling water from the fridge and swilling out her dry mouth, the taste of the smoke lingering on her tongue. Her eyes scanned the dim shop as she looked for Kara, her wards letting her know that no one had left the place, and soon found her blonde head rounding a display cabinet as she held up a book.

“How much is this?”

Beckoning her forward, Lena suppressed the urge to roll her eyes, “I don’t know, ten dollars. Come here.”

Hurrying towards her with the book clamped in her hands, Kara set it down on the counter and fished out a purse, before pulling out a crisp note. Giving her a flat look, her mouth a grim line, Lena took the bill and opened the cash register, her eyes glimmering with amusement as she dryly replied, “would you like a receipt?”

“Oh, please,” Kara said, perking up slightly as she faintly smiled, “it’s work-specific so I can claim it back on tax.”

Looking at her for a long moment, Lena let out a soft snort as she shook her head, punching a button on the till and leaning against the counter as she watched it chug out a printed receipt. Picking up the book, Lena arched an eyebrow at the topic of choice, still somewhat bemused by the fact that the person standing before her was an anthropology professor.

“Petroglyphs?”

“It fits in with my lesson plan,” Kara said by way of explanation before Lena opened the cover and slipped the receipt inside.

Handing it back over, she gave her a shrewd look, her voice droll as she replied, “okay, can we get started now? Or can I interest you in buying a Seal of Soloman? Perhaps an adder stone to help you see and kill  _ Afancs _ ? Scottish painted pebbles, perhaps? Or would you like some incense for your office?”

“What do the pebbles do?”

“Hopefully get rid of you quicker,” Lena heavily sighed with a withering look. “The position of the Pleiades is particularly fortuitous tonight and I’m supposed to be attending a  _ Bacchanal _ to celebrate. The heliacal rising coincides with Mabon this year.”

“The pagan harvest festival?” Kara blinked, “I didn’t realise that was … still a thing.”

Grunting with unenthusiastic acknowledgement, Lena opened a cupboard and rifled through messily organised junk, before coming up with a battered black box with a moon inside a sun printed in gold.

“You’re an anthropologist - you should know that society is doomed to repeat itself. There’s even been a resurrection of druids. I imagine they’ll die out again within the century though. Now, what’s your star sign?”

“Oh, um, Aquarius.”

“Aquarius?” Lena echoed with doubt, “you don’t look  _ nearly _ mysterious enough, but oh well. What time were you born?”

Shifting uncomfortably, Kara shrugged and gingerly smiled, “I don’t know.”

“You’re very unhelpful, do you know that?”

Vaguely waving a hand, Kara rolled her eyes, “I don’t believe in … all that. You know …  _ astrology.” _

“You don’t believe in the stars? The moon? The planets,” Lena sharply countered, bristling slightly, “do you also not believe that your cat was resurrected or that I can burn you to cinders where you stand? You don’t believe that there are other worlds beyond our souls’ comprehension?”

“No, I just-”

“You’re being deliberately obtuse,” Lena sighed with weary defeat, rubbing at her temple as she set the black box down and took another swig of her sparkling water. “I should take your money and be done with it.”

Shrugging indifferently, Kara fished her purse out of her messenger bag and opened it up, eyebrows raised expectantly at Lena. “Okay then, how much?”

Eyeing the notes that Kara thumbed through, half-drawing them out in anticipation of the cost, Lena licked her lips and hesitated, glancing back up again before she folded. Forehead creasing with a mystified look, her words were strained with desire as she leant across the counter to her.

“But … aren’t you curious? Don’t you want to know  _ what _ you are?”

“I’ve gone my whole life not knowing,” Kara flippantly replied, picking up her book and shoving it in her bag as she swallowed thickly, a flicker of fear in her eyes, “I could go the rest of it  _ not _ knowing as well.”

Scoffing, Lena gave her a contemptuous look as she glanced back, waving her away in a dismissive manner as she coldly replied. “Suit yourself. You  _ did _ have a particularly mundane air about you the first time I saw you; truth be told, I don’t think you’d be well suited to this world. Best to stick with petroglyphs and ethnocentrism. Go and bang on about Roman jugs and ancient economic systems, but don’t come crying to me when you get yourself into trouble like that last time you got yourself wrapped up in something way out of your depth.”

Hesitating, Kara’s mouth thinned as she furrowed her brow in a look of deep thought, brimming with nervous energy as she held her purse in hand and deliberated. “How much?”

“Three-hundred,” Lena nonchalantly replied.

It was robbery under different circumstances, but ichor was hard to come by  _ and _ Kara had wasted her time, so Lena pushed aside the prickle of guilt and held her hand out expectantly, keeping her expression neutral. She watched as Kara chewed on her bottom lip, restlessly shifting from foot to foot before she sagged slightly with defeat.

_ “Or …” _

“You let me perform some tests on you to determine your powers or classification. If I don’t figure it out, that’s fine, I’ll consider the debt collected. If I  _ do _ figure it out, and it’s something of value to me, I’ll compensate you in exchange for blood or other such substances - including hair, teeth, nails, aura, or potential physical transformation traits like scales and the like. Do we have a deal, Professor?”

There was a flicker of uncertainty in Kara’s eyes, but she slowly put her money back in her purse and begrudging agreed, extending a hand to put it into Lena’s cool one, her grip firm and soft. Giving her a sharp smile, full of satisfaction and barely restrained eagerness, Lena picked up the black box and slipped a deck of tarot cards from the pack, making space along the long counter so she could spread the deck out in a line. They were deep blue, so dark they were almost black, and illustrated with gold leaf designs of the suits. The cards were thick and well worn from use, although cherished, and Lena gruffly cleared her throat as her nimble fingers started to shuffle them, looking up at Kara through her lashes.

“Okay, we’ll do a full spread. You pick six and I’ll give you a reading. It might give us a starting place about your destiny, but I can’t do much more than that with astrology without knowing your birth time.”

With practised ease, Lena splayed the cards out in one long line, a rarely used method for her readings, but one she hoped would provide more insight, and she climbed up on the stool and gestured towards the deck for Kara to pick.

“Six of them. Pick what you’re drawn to.”

Nodding, looking a little nervous, Kara chewed on her thumb for a few moments as her blue eyes darted across the deck, up and down the gold backs, the gold leaf deep amber in the dim lighting as the sun started to set outside and dusk crept in. Slowly, one by one, Kara made her choices, and Lena drew the cards out, arranging them in a row as she looked over them, judging and inferring what she could, until six were lined up in a row. Leaning forward, she tapped a finger on the first card. The Chariot. 

“The Chariot. The first card in this reading is how you feel about yourself; this card shows that … everything is a constant battle, but it’s a time for movement and change. Perseverance will end in victory. The second; what you want most right now. The Emperor in this position suggests you want success and achievement. A significant man in your life could be the source of this - perhaps … your father? Was there anything about him? Some family secret?”

Shrugging non-committally, Kara’s mouth turned down at the corners as she stared at the card, “not that I’m aware of.”

“Okay, well, moving on then. The third position is … fears,” Lena said, her eyes surreptitiously roaming over Kara’s face as she spoke slowly, an almost lazy indifference to her voice as she shifted in her seat. “The Lovers. Um … relationship problems?”

With a self-conscious laugh as she rubbed at the back of her neck, Kara smiled weakly, “only a long string of failed ones.”

“Oh … well, it could potentially be good news -  _ if _ you take action instead of letting the fear rule you. Moving on … what is going  _ for _ you is Justice. Things are about to go in your favour, which could potentially be about struggles in your personal life. An identity reveal, as such. You’ve got Death going against you though on this card,” Lena mused, her hand drifting to the one with a skeleton etched in gold leaf, “a lot of fear and anxiety here. Distressing events or turmoil in your life could bring that on. I think perhaps that’s my fault; I’ll take the fall for that. Apologies. And lastly, the likely outcome card is Judgement. Hm. Interesting.”

“What?”

There was a ghost of a smile tugging at the corners of Lena’s mouth as she looked up, green eyes lit with an almost smug look as she straightened up on her seat. 

“What I can infer from the Judgement card in this reading is a time for taking stock of things. Perhaps an end to a phase in your life. A new opportunity arising. An opportunity that will present itself shouldn’t be ignored and could have far-reaching implications that could lead to a better life for you.”

With a derisive snort, Kara gave her an amused look, tilting her head to the side as a smile wrinkled her nose and eyes. “Was this a  _ real _ reading, or was it just your attempt at making me believe that you have my best interests at heart.”

“Oh, no,” Lena chuckled as she gathered up the cards, “you should  _ never _ presume I have your best interests at heart. Please don’t mistake my curiosity for  _ caring _ ; this is purely in  _ my _ best interests. I could make  _ quite _ a profit off of something you could offer me. Not money-wise, obviously, but someone might offer something particularly interesting in exchange for what you could offer me.”

As she wedged the cards back into the box and put them back in the cupboard, Lena straightened up and dusted off her hands, giving Kara an impish smile. With a brooding look clouding her angelic face, Kara pursed her lips and stared at Lena with darkness flickering in her eyes.

“I don’t believe you’re  _ that _ unfeeling.”

“Believe what makes you feel better,” Lena carelessly brushed off Kara’s words, waving a hand towards the dusty windows and watching as the lattice of magic locked into place. “Come on; we’re going upstairs for more tests. Bring Stripey.”

“It’s  _ Streaky _ .”

“That’s what I said.”

Unlocking the door to the hallway with another drop of her blood smeared alongside the dark stain, Lena slipped into the cramped space and waited until Kara followed her inside, cat in her arms, before she shut the door behind them. The feeling of being watched intensified in the dark space, nocturnal creatures in cages stacked haphazardly along the length of the wall, alongside scrolls and piles of books and boxes, things that were sensitive to too much light and wouldn’t fit into the overflowing storage cupboard wedged in beside the bursting room of dangerous and expensive supplies. Skin prickling and Kara’s breath loud behind her as it tickled the back of her neck, Lena rounded the end of the staircase and started to climb, gripping the rickety metal bannister as her boots thudded heavily on the aged wood.

At the top of the stairs, she fished out her keys and found the small one by touch, blindly inserting it into the lock and turning. Dusk streamed in through the windows, the last rays of light filling the room with shadows and a smudged blue hue that made Lena’s eyes feel heavy with the urge to sleep. Flipping on a light switch and filling the open space with yellow light, Lena stepped further inside.

To the left, a low leather divan sat before a coffee table made of reclaimed wood, beyond which sat a small fireplace, cold and full of ashes, with a large bronze shield hanging above the mantle. An owl was stamped into the metal and Kara eyed it warily, wondering if the white plastered wall could even hold the hefty weight of it. A bed with olive rumpled sheets was pushed up further along the same wall, half-hidden behind a folding screen, books piled up at the foot of the bed in uneven piles, while a clothing rack was pushed up against the window, crowded with black clothes.

A small round table, laden with yet more books and a few dishes, herbs and crystals stood in the middle of the room, where a black cat lay curled up on one of the wrought-iron chairs, looking at them with yellow eyes. Even the kitchen was a wonder, beyond the ordinary wooden countertops and tiled splashback, the gas stove and humming fridge covered in magnets and notes. The stovetop was crowded with different sized cauldrons, filling the air with a pungent smell as they all bubbled away on different heats.

Bookshelves were laden with candles and tomes, scrolls and pouches, grimoires and bottles and artefacts, chalices and clay jars. It had unimaginable paraphernalia, and Kara gawked at the place, so strange yet homely, at odds with each other as magic spilt over into the mundane ordinariness of Lena’s dirty dishes and an unmade bed. 

“Don’t mind the cat. She’s friendly,” Lena nonchalantly threw over her shoulder as the black cat climbed to her feet and leapt down to the worn floorboards. 

Arching her back, she stretched and moved towards Lena, who stooped down to give her a quick scratch behind the ears. There was a thump as Streaky hit the floor behind Kara and slowly prowled towards the black cat with the aloofness that Lena loved in cats.

“What’s her name?”

“She hasn’t told me yet.”

“Okay,” Kara slowly replied, shutting the warped door and stepped inside, “what’s  _ your _ name?”

“I haven’t told  _ you _ that yet.”

“I know, that’s why I’m asking.”

With a droll smile, Lena’s eyebrows rose and fell quickly as she kicked off her chunky boots and raked her fingers through her hair. “Can’t tell you, I’m afraid. Never know who might be asking. You could be affiliated with any number of my enemies.”

Making a low sound of annoyance at the back of her throat, Kara gave her a shrewd look as Lena moved towards the kitchen, leaning over the cauldrons before she moved towards the sink and filled a kettle with water and set it on to boil. Curious, Kara drifted towards the kitchen as well, moving to lift a lid covering one of the cauldrons when Lena’s wiry fingers wound around her wrist.

Mouth dry, Kara looked up at Lena with owlishly round eyes, breathing in the lingering odour of smoke and something almost sweet as Lena leant in close, danger rippling from her in waves as a shiver ran down Kara’s spine.

“Don’t mess with that,” Lena murmured, pulling back and relinquishing her hold on Kara.

Cracking the fingers of her hand, Kara hovered in the kitchen, watching as Lena walked over to a window and threw it open, letting in a gust of cool air to chase away the smell of candle wax, potions and incense. The grimy window opened onto the half-rusted fire escape, which went up to the roof and down to a trash-filled narrow alley running through the block. 

“So, what now?”

“First … we have tea,” Lena declared, pulling out chipped white bone china teacups and a moss green cast-iron _tetsu_ _kyūsu_. 

_ “Tea?” _

Rummaging around in a cupboard, Lena deliberated for a moment before pulling out two battered metal containers of loose leaf teas, her tongue trapped between her lips as she hummed. “Mhm. It’s Tasseography. Divination. Do you prefer mint or rooibos?”

Waving a hand vaguely as her face crumpled with a baffled expression, Kara shook her head, “mint?”

“Good choice.”

Scooping tea leaves into the  _ kyūsu _ , Lena plucked the kettle, which was just starting to boil, off the heat and filled the teapot up, before holding it out to Kara, who stepped forward to take it. Picking up the teacups balanced on saucers, Lena crossed the room and set the teacups down on the cramped table, before she gathered the assortment of bowls with half-finished healing pastes and balms in her arms and gave Kara a sheepish smile, whisking them over to the kitchen counters as Kara set the cups and saucers down.

Tentatively taking a seat as she waited for Lena to return, Kara peered down at the loose sheet of parchment on top of the stack, the page yellowed with age and curling at the corners. It was incomprehensible to her and she furrowed her brows as her eyes roamed over the unfamiliar dots and lines.

“What language is this?” Kara asked, raising the page as Lena returned, settling down onto the chair opposite her.

“What, you don’t know it?”

Snorting, Kara’s eyes shuttered with exasperation, before she fixed Lena with a grim look. “I’m a professor in  _ certain areas _ of anthropology. I don’t know every language, or every culture, or every period of history.”

“It’s Elamite. It was an isolated language spoken in the southern Mesopotamia region until about two-thousand five-hundred years ago. That’s the ceuniform of it, but it was largely logo-syllabic, to begin with. Scholars are still trying to figure it out.”

“Can  _ you _ read it?”

“Sure,” Lena nonchalantly replied, “I met a Zurvanic  _ magi _ who taught it to me the last time I was in Iran. It’s not my strongest suit, but I can at least figure out the meaning of spells like that before I sell it to people and let them soul bind themselves to astral planes.”

Looking a bit peaky as Lena picked up the  _ kyūsu  _ and swilled the tea around, releasing the refreshing perfume of mint from the narrow spout, Kara swallowed thickly.

“Has that happened before?”

“Not to  _ me _ , but my mother warned me.”

Nodding with an air of relief about her, Kara watched as Lena filled both of the cups and set the teapot back down. Picking up her own, Lena blew on the curl of steam and took a scalding sip. She still had a headache from earlier on and the effects of the incense and the mint was a soothing balm as she savoured the taste on her tongue and breathed it in. Kara was quiet as she followed suit, holding the saucer in one hand as she took small sips.

“Do you know many languages?”

Drawing circles on the table with her finger, Lena mused for a moment, lips pursed as she glanced out the window at the violet sky. “I can speak about three dozen very well, maybe another hundred passably well, and read perhaps twice that.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Kara said, aghast at the idea as a trembling smile curled her mouth and she waited for Lena to laugh.

Blinking with a blank look on her face, Lena took another gulp of tea and quirked an eyebrow. “Why would I joke about that? I deal with creatures from the depths of history, from a time so dark that mankind was lucky to crawl out from the bottom of the food chain and overrun the land. They live inside realms, in the shadows, at the bottoms of lakes and in mountains. They all have languages; thousands of them. They all have magic and knowledge that’s useful to me. Even what I know is a shallow pool compared to the deep ocean of what’s been lost to time or jealously guarded by gods and beings that walked the earths of those times. What we have left is filtered down information that is most often useless or misleading. That spell right there? A charm to stop milk from spoiling. Useless.”

Kara let out a snort of laughter and Lena gave her a thin smile, taking another sip of tea as she drained her cup quickly and refilled it. She wasn’t doing a reading for herself, but the heat of it spreading throughout her stomach and chest helped relieve the knots of tension in her back and shoulders. She watched as Streaky and her cat slyly inched closed to each other, back-to-back, and made a faint sound of an acknowledgement as Kara spoke.

“So … what’s this supposed to reveal?”

Glancing sideways at her, Lena smiled as Kara gestured with her cup. Clearing her throat and setting her fresh cup down, Lena laced her fingers together and leant her elbows on the table.

“Hopefully the symbols I read in your tea leaves will offer some guidance. Shine the light on either your lineage or future. It can offer up more than tarot reading’s because the interpretations aren’t limited to what the cards mean.”

“Oh.”

“Drink up.”

Draining the rest of her cup, Kara swallowed it in one big gulp and held her cup out to Lena, who took it and upended it on the saucer to drain the dregs of tea from the bottom. Flipping it back over, Lena kicked her legs up on one of the empty chairs as she cradled the white cup in her hand, chewing on her thumb as she eyed the soggy leaves at the bottom. A prickle of unease washed over her as she picked out shapes at the bottom, and Lena straightened up, feet moving back to the floor as she hunched her shoulders and looked into the cup with a clouded look of worry on her face.

“What do you see?” Kara anxiously asked.

“I don’t- it’s … conflicting. In tasseography, you split the cup, so vertically - left and right - and horizontally - top and bottom. Left is potential negative outcomes, while the right is potential positive outcomes, and symbols in the top half are the present, while near the bottom is the past. So … you’ve got an owl here - do you see it? Owls are bad omens. They’re harbingers of … well, it depends, but it’s not good but … it’s in the past on the left side. Something bad is hovering over you, it’s clouding the reading … but then here, near the rim on the right half, is a wheel. That usually symbolises inheritance. Perhaps a … family inheritance?”

“Well, that’s good, right?”

Humming disconcertingly, Lena pressed her lips into a flat line as she looked at the rest of the unreadable leaves, her sore eyes dry and a prickling of unease hanging over her as her eyes kept being drawn back to that owl. Running a hand over her face, she set the cup back down, rattling the china, and pinched the bridge of her nose.

“Do you know any reason why you’d have a bad omen from the past hanging over you?”

“Not that I can recall.”

“No … spells? Trinkets? Nothing like that?”

Cheeks turning pink, Kara ducked her head as she cleared her throat, the flush deepening as she turned her head to the side, cupping her cheek in her hand as she tried to hide her obvious embarrassment. With a self-conscious laugh, strained and high, Kara fiddled with her glasses.

“Um, I- I  _ did _ buy … an amulet when I went to New Orleans a few years ago. It was in this little occult shop full of junk so I didn’t take it seriously. I was on vacation with my sister during spring break so … it was just a joke.”

“An amulet? You still have it?” Lena sharply asked, her body taut like a coiled spring.

Fishing beneath the collar of her shirt, Kara pulled out an  _ ankh _ hanging from a silver chain by the loop, and Lena’s brow furrowed together as she reached across the small table and cupped the Egyptian hieroglyphic in her hand, before quickly dropping it as if she’d been burned. In a way, she had, with sinister energy running up her arm as the amulet reacted to the wards she was shrouded in. Hissing, Lena snatched her hand away and cradled it against her chest, scowling at Kara as her expression darkened, the air in the room seeming to press in on them, a suffocating closeness that made icy fear slide down Lena’s spine.

“What’s wrong?” Kara asked, startling at Lena’s visceral response to the amulet.

“It’s a cursed Egyptian amulet!  _ Why _ do you even have that?” Lena bitingly asked, her eyes so wide that the whites were visible all around as she sat rigidly in her seat, eyeing the amulet with a white-knuckled grip on the edge of the table.

“It’s  _ cursed?” _ Kara blanched, her face a mask of horror as she turned ashen.

“We can rule any sort of witch off then,” Lena scathingly replied, shaking out her tingling hand, “I’d almost think a human would feel the malice radiating from that. God, I should’ve picked up on it the moment you stepped into my shop.  _ Whatever _ you are, your aura bloody hid  _ that _ from me.”

Sucking on her finger, Lena glowered at the amulet and mumbled a curse beneath her breath as Kara looked at her.

“I’m sure the charlatan who sold it to you didn’t know what it was, but fuck me, what were you  _ thinking? _ You should never buy cheap naff like that from places like that; either it’s not going to work, or it’s going to be dangerous. What did you even want with an  _ ankh?” _

Kara’s pale cheeks flooded with colour again as she turned scarlet, sinking down in her chair beneath Lena’s unwavering stare, accusing and disgruntled.

“I, uh, it was supposed to be … a love charm.”

Eyes shuttering, Lena snorted with laughter, “a  _ love _ charm? It most definitely wouldn’t bring love, that’s for sure. By any chance, was that long string of failed relationships before or  _ after _ you bought this?”

Lips pressed into a grim line, Kara looked at her with guilt and mortification. Her answer was slow to come as she shifted uncomfortably on the seat, rubbing at the back of her neck as she looked everywhere but at Lena. 

“After.”

“Take it off,” Lena flatly ordered.

Scrambling to unclasp the thin silver chain, Kara gingerly held it out, the amulet dangling from the end of it, seemingly innocuous as it caught the light, and Lena reached for the half-empty teapot and took off the lid, jerking her head towards it. Dumping the amulet inside it, Kara slowly drew her hand back as Lena clamped the lid back on.

“What will you do with it?”

“First, I’ll cast a Mayan binding spell on it to make sure the magic doesn’t interfere with anything else,” Lena sourly explained, her hand's palm to palm before separating in an abrupt motion, before she turned her hands towards the ceiling and curled her fingers.

Kara watched with wonder as Lena’s eyes flashed dangerously, palpable tension between her hands as they trembled slightly with the force, and as she watched, a small crackling spark grew between Lena’s clenched fists. It was yellow and growing rapidly as Lena’s brow broke out in a cold sweat from the spell before she managed to wrestle the ball of magic over to the teapot and envelope it in the magic. Letting out a heaving breath, Lena’s chest rose and fell as she wiped her forehead on the sleeve of her t-shirt.

“I’ll need to do a purge spell on you as well and then burn the amulet in Greek fire, just as a precaution.”

“Oh. Sorry. Should- are we trying the tea again?”

With a rueful twist of her lips, Lena climbed to her feet, snatching up both cups and saucers, “the energy from the amulet has interfered with your body’s energies. I won’t be able to read anything while you chakras realign and your aura clears.”

“My aura?”

Rolling her eyes on the way to the kitchen, her back to Kara and her jaw clenched with frustration, Lena set the cups down on the counters and turned around, leaning back against it.

“Everyone has an aura. Every living being.”

“You can see mine?”

“Obviously.”

Eyebrows rising slightly, Kara gave her an expectant look, “well? What colour is it?”

“Aquamarine,” Lena said with a faint twitch of her lips as she grazed her finger over the blood-stained charm that had been activated earlier when she’d stormed into Kara’s office. 

The wisps of blue around her, concentrated at her head and hands, had reminded her of the sea. Not just any sea, but the clearest blue of the Maldives, tranquil and soothing. It spoke of Kara’s personality and nature, and Lena traced the pattern on the silver charm as she stared at her for a moment longer, before pushing off the counter.

“Come here,” she said, jerking her head towards the divan as she crossed the room.

It was modelled after the Ancient Roman style, with wooden rolled arms and cylindrical pillows at each end, long enough for Lena to recline on as she read before the fire. Kara was a few inches taller than her though, and when Lena pat the seat cushion, she eyed it with doubt.

“Take off your cardigan, and your shirt would be helpful too if you don’t mind. Shoes as well.”

Stripping off the periwinkle cashmere cardigan and the white shirt, revealing a white tank top underneath and surprisingly wiry arms, corded with lean muscle, Kara folded them and set them down on the coffee table, before slipping off the Birkenstocks she wore and setting them on top.

“Ah, no!” Lena scolded her, “no shoes on the table, thank you. You’ve brought  _ enough _ bad luck into my home already.”

Muttering an apology, Kara quickly put the shoes down on a cowhide rug spread out beneath the reclaimed wood coffee table and sat down on the divan. Lena was rummaging through one of her laden shelves and returned with a wooden box, a corked jar and a blue box of matches. Setting everything down on the coffee table, Lena took a seat beside Kara and leaned forward, opening the long mahogany box to reveal a white smoking pipe.

“Have you ever smoked before?” Lena asked, glancing sideways at Kara as she pulled the carved wooden pipe out of the velvet bed it was nestled on.

“No.”

“Are you okay with doing it so I can purge you of the curse?”

With a quiet, scoffing laugh, Kara stared at her with raised eyebrows and a pinched look of amusement on her worried face. “I feel like I can make an exception for this.”

Giving her a thin smile, Lena nodded, sloppily tying her hair up in a bun before she opened the jar and packed the pipe with the mixture inside. The mixture was a drug derived from the moly flower, blessed and left to wither in the sun for three days, and rendered one's soul immune to magic. It would help loosen the shadow cast over Kara’s body by the cursed amulet, and Lena tamped the dried yellow petals down before thumbing in a bit more until it was filled to the rim and the air was filled with the honeyed smell of the plant.

Fixing Kara with a piercing stare, Lena offered her another small smile, “it won’t hurt, but this will keep you docile and protect your soul from the curse.”

Gulping, Kara quickly nodded, her eyes on the pipe. “Okay.”

Reaching up to her necklace, Lena sent a spark of her power into the  _ triquetra _ hanging from one of the many chains. The unending triple pointed knot was a shield talisman against harm, and she felt the spectral armour of the charm coat her skin like it was painted on, translucent and invulnerable. Picking up the blue box, Lena withdrew a match and scraped it across the side of the box, filling the air with a sulfurous smell as she lit it, opting for the easier method of creating fire, and touched the flame to the pipe, before bringing it to her lips.

Moving the match around as she lit the moly flower, filling the air with the sweet fragrance of it as it burned, she drew in gentle breaths as she evenly lit the dried petals. Shaking out the match before it could burn her fingers, she dropped it onto the table and let the pipe go out as she blew a thin stream of smoke out of her mouth, wispy and curling, before drawing out another match and repeating the process until the bowl was properly lit and glowing red.

“Don’t inhale the smoke, okay? Just breathe it into your mouth and hold it,” Lena slowly coached Kara, “I’ll help you.”

Drawing in another puff of the herb, feeling it tickle her tongue as she locked eyes with Kara, Lena leant in, so close that a scant inch separated their mouth, and gripped Kara’s chin, her thumb brushing her lips. Parting her own lips, Lena blew the stream of smoke into Kara’s mouth. Sitting ramrod straight, hands clenched in her lap, Kara’s breathing stuttered with a ragged inhale as her eyelashes fluttered and she closed her eyes, faint curls of smoke oozing from her mouth.

Slowly inhaling the smoke again, filling her mouth with the acrid taste of it, Lena shifted on the divan, kneeling on the cushions as she slid a hand beneath Kara’s knee and jerked her towards her and then eased her down onto her back. Lena followed after her on the way down, breathing a stream of smoke into her mouth as Kara coughed and sputtered it back at her, wrinkling her nose as her eyes watered.

Smiling at her, around the end of the pipe, wolfish and almost admiring, Lena brushed the hair that had escaped Kara’s ponytail out of her face with an almost tender gentleness, before she pressed her thumb to the third eye on Kara’s brow. Kneeling over her, Lena inhaled again and breathed through Kara’s parted lips, their noses brushing as she felt the flush of heat on Kara’s skin. Once she’d finished exhaling, Lena looked into her eyes, at the pupils wide with fear and perhaps a sliver of desire and then closed her eyes.

Through the point of contact at Kara’s third eye, Lena sent a torrent of her magic through the link, bridging their souls until her magic filled Kara’s limp body. Eyes screwed tightly shut as she clenched her teeth, body taut with the strain of her magic filling the void that she funnelled it into, Lena felt a cold sweat cover her back. Muttering a spell under her breath, she slowly grew louder, her voice firm and biting as she felt the pressure of the curse push back against her power, trying to find a way in.

It was a battle of wills, but she was domineering and overbearing, drawing the malingering stain of the curse from Kara’s body like drawing a splinter. Slowly but surely she reeled the darkness veiling her into a tight spool and pulled her thumb back as she drew the smudge out of the still woman beneath her. Drawing back with the puddle of opaque grey pooling in her hand, Lena’s voice rose louder, deeper and harsh as she moved towards the nearest window.

With a final sharp word, ringing with command, she watched as the lingering curse dissolved into the breeze outside, before slamming the window shut and falling back against it, looking grey and dishevelled. Blinking rapidly as she shook aside the effects of the smoke coating her tongue, Lena quickly crossed the room to stare down at Kara, whose eyelashes were fluttering, the smoke leaving her pliant and drowsy, and sighed softly, before walking over to one of the shelves.

Picking up a tiny bottle, the liquid inside a deep butterscotch, and carried it over to Kara. Crouching beside her, Lena unscrewed the cap and used the pipette in the lid to draw up a few drops of it. Setting the bottle on the floor, she reached up and peeled back Kara’s eyelid, putting two drops in one eye and then the next, watching as the liquid dispersed through her eyes. 

It was a drug called Sundrop, incandescent in its power, revitalising its users with a strong euphoric rush, enhancing one's perception and motor-functioning. The downside was a nasty headache and hangover-like symptoms that would linger for a few hours once the effects wore off, but Lena cared less about that than waking Kara up. She patted her cheek to coax her eyes awake, and Kara slowly blinked up at her as she came-to.

“Coptic,” Kara blurted out as Lena helped ease her up as the drug seeped through her system.

“What?”

“You were speaking Coptic.”

With a bark of laughter, Lena arched an eyebrow as she eyed her, “I was.”

“God, that was … strange.”

Chuckling as she drifted towards the kitchen, Lena pulled out two clay pots and moved towards the fridge. Pulling out an open carton of orange juice, she filled them both and then rummaged around in a cupboard to pull out a small mint tin.

“You’ll have a massive headache afterwards,” she called over her shoulder, wrestling with the tin as she tried to pry it open. “You’ll crash. No lasting side-effects though. Nothing some sleep and greasy fast food can’t fix.”

“Wonderful.”

With a sound of triumph, Lena pulled the lid off, rattling the big blue pills inside. They were the size of her thumbnail and robin egg blue, made from the powder collected off the wings of moths found in the night realm of Svartálfaheimr. Dropping one into each glass, Lena watched the orange juice froth in reaction as she closed the tin and put it back, before carrying the glasses over to Kara.

Swilling her mouth out to rid herself of the foul aftertaste of the cloyingly sweet smoke, the tartness of the citrus cutting through the taste of it, Lena handed the other glass to Kara. The contents had turned a pale green and Kara eyed it dubiously as she raised it to eye level.

“What is it?”

“Orange juice and Kana Dust.”

“What?”

“Dust collected from the wings of a  _ Lepidoptera Kanas,” _ she explained, giving Kara a crooked smile at the confusion on her face. “A rare moth found in Svartálfaheimr.”

With a suspicious look in her eyes, Kara gave Lena a wary look. “Like … the Norse mythology realm?”

Rolling her eyes, Lena gave her a thin smile, “what, don’t tell me now that Yggdrasil and the nine realms attached to it are  _ too _ unbelievable.”

With a scoff of laughter, Kara raised her eyebrows, “I mean … yeah, a little bit.”

“Drink up.”

“What’ll it do?”

“Make the hangover slightly better.”

Eyebrows rising and falling in another look of doubt, Kara silently took a tentative sip, before realising that it just tasted like ordinary orange juice, and quickly drained the rest as Lena finished off hers. Already, the pulsing headache at her temples was dulling, the loose-limbed effects of the smoke making her more relaxed as well.

Setting her glass down on the coffee table, Kara scrubbed a hand over her face, blinking owlishly, and then looked up at Lena expectantly. “Okay, so now what?”

“There’s a block inside you,” Lena glumly drawled, setting her own glass down and stretching her arms up above her head, letting the blood circulate properly as she mulled over the next course of action. “I felt it when my magic was inside you- your body. Some sort of suppressant that could be inhibiting your powers. It was most likely put there when you were young by a parent or even someone with a vendetta against your family. Particularly if you were a threat to them.”

Face screwing up with a grave look of contemplation as Kara tried to wrap her head around someone doing something like that to her, she shook her head, a mystified look in her blue eyes as she met Lena’s gaze and shook her head.

“I don’t remember any rituals like that or anything.”

“They might’ve blocked the memories too,” Lena gently replied.

Nodding as she chewed on the inside of her mouth, hands smoothing over the thighs of her tan culotte pants, Kara was silent for a few minutes. “Could you- could you … remove the block?”

“If that’s what you want. It could affect your life greatly, to unleash a power that might be too hard for me to suppress and chain again. You could be a danger to yourself … to your friends and family. I won’t pressure you into doing it; there are other ways we can keep digging.”

Pausing, biting her lip as she deliberated, Kara shook her head, a grim resolution to her face as she set her jaw and squared her shoulders. “Just do it.”

Nodding, Lena moved over to a nearby shelf and pulled out a thick stick of chalk and moved to the middle of the room. On her hands and knees, she started drawing a wide circle, starting with a basic pentagram and then adding incomprehensible runes, scrawling script and other hieroglyphics that created a protective spell that even Lena couldn’t fully decipher. The meaning wasn’t clear, lost to history, but the ward was just as effective as she etched it into the old floorboards of her home.

Wiping chalk dust on her black pants, leaving white ghostly streaks in her hand’s wake, she tossed the chalk aside and walked over to a small stereo system, dated in its leather cover and small knobs and dials, and turned it on. The tenuous sound of a wind instrument spilt from the staticky speaker as Lena turned it up, high and clear as it filled the apartment, a bone-deep serenity flooding through Lena’s body at the archaic sounds that made her skin crawl with unspoken magic, and she turned it up loud enough to almost drown out conversation.

Lighting a few sticks of incense to clear the air of any lingering negative energy, Lena moved back over to Kara’s side. Kneeling before her, Lena gave her a small smile as she met her gaze and nodded firmly.

“I’m going to realign your chakras first. Get the energy flowing through your body properly, and then you’ll stand in the middle of the pentagram.”

“Okay.”

Placing one hand on Kara’s shoulder, Lena made her draw in a few deep, even breaths, in through the nose and out through the mouth, until she had a gentle rhythm going. Placing her hand over Kara’s lower abdomen, feeling her tense slightly beneath her touch, Lena spoke softly, her words almost swallowed by the music.

“I want you to close your eyes and imagine a red ball of swirling energy in here,” Lena quietly coached her, her voice low and intimate, making goosebumps ripple across the bare skin of Kara’s arms. “This is the Root Chakra. Focus on it. That red ball of energy.”

They were silent, listening to the trance-like meditative sound of Celtic music as they both breathed in tandem, slow and deep, before Lena’s fingers lightly trailed up an inch over the white fabric of Kara’s tank top.

“The Sacral Chakra. Imagine that energy flowing up to this point,” Lena murmured, her fingers stopping just below Kara’s naval, “envision an orange ball of energy.”

On and on it went, with Lena’s light touch guiding the energy up through Kara’s chakras, one by one as Kara kept her eyes closed and Lena watched her closely. Her long eyelashes fluttered, her lips were slightly parted, and Lena could feel her abdomen rise and fall with each breath.

Up through the Solar Plexus Chakra, a ball of yellow energy concentrated beneath her chest, green energy for her Heart Chakra, and blue for her Throat Chakra. Her fingertips pressed into Kara’s third eye again as she breathed and meditated over the indigo energy, before Lena’s hand rested on top of Kara’s head at the Crown Chakra, violet and pulling the cosmic energy threading through her into alignment. After a few minutes, Lena removed her hand.

“You can open your eyes now.”

Eyelashes fluttering, Kara blinked a few times and flexed her fingers, tingling with the energy that coursed through her. Climbing to her feet, Lena moved over to the pentagram with Kara in tow and positioned her in the middle of it, getting her to drop her shoulders and let her body relax.

“Last part now,” Lena said with more confidence than she felt, lingering outside the pentagram as she stared at Kara, her eyes burrowing into the other woman.

Hands curled into fists, her fingernails gouging half-moons into her palms, Lena drew in a deep breath, expanding her chest, and centred herself as she felt her magic within her. It hummed beneath the surface of her pale skin, the tattoo on her arm itching with the spells inked onto her skin, and it pooled inside her, a bubble waiting to be pricked, to let the magic seep out and be wielded by Lena’s iron will. 

Reaching up, she clasped the  _ ansuz _ Elder Futhark rune from the cluster of charms and held it tightly in her hand, her mouth moving wordlessly as she let her magic feed into the wisdom and truth power the  _ ansuz _ rune held. Blinking a few times as her sight changed, revealing lines of power radiating from a thousand places in her apartment, clusters of magic shimmering where a spell had been cast, where a magical object was, where wards crisscrossed the entire apartment and ley lines ran through. And there, in the centre of Kara’s head, a block that had been placed in her mind to suppress a magic she’d never even known.

Anger needled at Lena at the fact that someone had put it there, and she drew in a deep, rattling breath, dropping the charm and forming a v with her hands. Face dark with seething frustration, Lena adopted a wide-footed stance, lowering her centre of gravity and felt the tempest in her chest grow with her pent up breath. Feeding it with the magic coursing through her, winding it into a knotted ball of power, the world seemed to stop for a second.

And with the slow exhale of her bated breath, Lena thrust her hands towards Kara in an abrupt motion, watching as the torrent of grey magic streamed out of her cupped hands and streaked towards Kara.

Trapped inside the pentagram, Kara was rooted to the spot, her whole body taut and straining as the magic barrelled into her chest and wrapped her in a vice. Tendons were taut and muscles bunched as she ground her teeth together, face screwed up as she choked on the magic that forced its way up her nose and down her throat. Her gasp as she inhaled made Lena winced slightly as she exhausted all of her reserves on the spell and watched as it slowly ate away at the mental block.

Coiled like a caged animal waiting to pounce, Lena waited as the last bits of the magical blocker vanished, and despite bracing herself, there was no accounting for the explosion that tore from Kara’s skin. Tossed backwards over the divan and smacking her head on the coffee table as she crashed into the floor in a crumpled heap, Lena listened to the sounds of things splintering and smashing over the sound of the music as waves of power radiated from Kara and destroyed her disorderly arranged apartment.

Dazed and winded, Lena struggled for a moment to catch her breath, before she pushed herself to her feet, picking pieces of the broken glasses on the coffee table out of her dark hair and stared at Kara with a white face. Her face was tight with irritation and a small lick of fear as it slithered down her spine and coiled at the base. The hairs on her arms rose with the sensation that she’d just been plunged into icy water, and Lena’s mouth fell open in surprise as she looked at Kara.

Hunched and wincing as things continued to fall around them in delayed response to the discharged magic that had been building inside for who knew how many years, Kara covered her head with her arms and curled in on herself. The music fizzled out as the stereo died a moment later, followed by the heavy bronze shield on the wall falling from its hook and ringing like a struck gong. Looking around the place with a morose look of defeat, Lena sighed heavily as she looked back at Kara and met her fearful eyes. 

“You know, you’re very quickly becoming my least favourite customer.”

A nervous laugh squeezed itself from Kara’s tight throat as she slowly managed to move her stiff, disjointed body. “I’m sorry.”

Waving off the apology, Lena shrugged, her mouth turning down at the corners. “Nothing a spell won’t help fix.”

“What  _ was _ that?”

Brow furrowing, Lena climbed back over the divan, rubbing at the back of her head as she gave Kara an appraising look. Eyes roaming over her body, looking for any of the usual markings that signified some sort of magic, whether it be slitted pupils, sharp nails, a change of skin tone or a strange scaly birthmark, Lena walked behind her and paused. With her hair up, the back of Kara’s neck was exposed, and Lena’s eyes widened at the sight of the black mark placed upon her skin that hadn’t been there earlier.

“Valkyrie!” she victoriously exclaimed, her eyes burning with triumph as she relished the sound of the word in her mouth.

“What?” Kara said, anxious as she quickly turned her head.

Giving her a genuine smile, Lena reached up to touch the symbol of the raven - Odin’s mark - and let out a lighthearted laugh. “You’re a Valkyrie.”

“A … chooser of the slain?”

“The one and only,” Lena said, before slapping a hand against her forehead as she groaned. “Kára. It means wild, stormy one in Old Norse. There’s a famous Valkyrie named Kára in the  _ Poetic Edda _ . Of course! I’m an idiot.”

“Yeah, I mean, how could you have forgotten  _ that?” _ Kara quipped, sounding a little faint as she processed everything.

Rounding the still figure, Lena stopped in front of her and cocked her head to the side, her eyes creasing with a smile that didn’t touch her lips as she looked at her, taking in the pallid skin, the deep shadows beneath her eyes and the panicked, shallow breaths Kara was drawing in.

“You okay?”

“Yep,” Kara flatly replied.

Eyebrows rising, Lena looked at her with uncertainty. “Are you sure? You look like you’re about to vomit. If you vomit on me I  _ will _ ban you from entering my store again. And I’ll take your liver for good measure.”

Blanching, looking impossibly grey, Kara gave her an aghast look, pressing a trembling hand to her forehead, her mouth a bloodless line as she stood there for a moment. Her eyes were wide and there was a haunted look to them as she breathed for a few moments, before shaking her head.

“Nope.”

She went limp like a puppet with its strings cut, folding in on herself as she dropped like a sack of bricks, while Lena was left standing, squawking indignantly as the fledgeling Valkyrie passed out in the middle of her wrecked apartment.

“Fucking Valkyrie’s,” Lena heavily sighed, staring at the prone figure stretched out inside the pentagram.

It took a lot of huffing and struggling, her body wanting to sag beneath Kara’s body weight as her own wilted, too drained from the abundance of magic she’d already spent, but Lena managed to half-drag half-carry Kara across the apartment and set her down on the rumpled bedsheets behind the folding screen, which has sustained most of the damage and left the cordoned off bedroom relatively clean. 

Staring down at the limp body passed out from shock, Lena pondered what to do with her and decided that leaving her would just be best. With the pungent smell of smoke clinging to her hair and skin and clothes, as well as a cold sweat that left her clothes chafing uncomfortably against her skin, Lena picked her way towards the bathroom, stepping over her prized Amazonian shield and shutting the uneven door behind her.

Pulling the plastic shower curtain around the tub, Lena stripped off her clothes and climbed under a stream of cold water as she waited for it to heat up, the shoddy pipework often surprising her with bouts of hot and cold, and picked up a bar of soap. Scrubbing herself clean, feeling the stench of magic and smoke and sweat strip away from her skin, until she was left pink and bare and smelling of elderflowers and honey. 

Brushing her teeth and adding eye drops to her red-rimmed eyes, Lena donned a navy kimono with a crane design on the back, one of her mahjong winnings from Roulette, and stepped out of the bathroom, raking her fingers through her curling, damp hair. Sighing, Lena walked over to the shield and picked it up, hanging it back up in its place of honour, before she shifted the divan back to its place, righted an ottoman that had been displaced by a few feet, and walked over to the nearest shelf.

It took her the better part of an hour to sweep up broken vials and bottles, putting on rubber gloves and a face mask to protect herself from fumes and acidic mixtures that might’ve been concocted on the floorboards. Piling sheaths of paper into stacks, she tied them with lengths of ribbon and picked up heavy tomes that had sustained the fall quite well, considering most of the books were older than her great-great-great-grandmother. Picking up scattered crystals and broken mirror shards, little perfume bottles of fragrances not of this world and herbs that had been scattered about. 

Her potions brewing in the kitchen had been completely ruined, gunk splattered across the tiled splashback, some of it smouldering away on the stovetop, filling the place with the noxious fumes. After a round of bleach and sweeping the floor twice, she managed to form some semblance of order - it might’ve even been cleaner than before if she was being honest, albeit minus a few pieces of crockery and supplies - and Lena coaxed the two nervous cats out of the kitchen pantry as she stared down at a paper menu.

Starving after the unexpected eventful day, Lena ordered another round of sweet and sour pork and chicken lo mein, as well as bao buns, potstickers, Mongolian beef, two wonton soups and a dozen egg rolls, hearing the amusement in Roulette’s voice on the other end. With the cats placated with a whole salmon she’d been saving for after the  _ Bacchanal _ , which undoubtedly was  _ not _ happening for Lena that night, she poured herself a finger of witch wood absinthe, a poisonous green that burned on the way down yet stoked a fire in her empty stomach.

Puttering about as she waited for the order to arrive, Lena reorganised her shelves and opened the windows to let in the cold night air, the cool freshness of it chasing away the smell of incense and magic that had been so thick and muggy that she hadn’t even noticed it was there until it was blown away on the wind. Lighting a vanilla candle to soothe her weary soul, she sat in a chair, reading her way through a book of ancient Olmec shaman rituals written in Libyco-Berber script until an invisible shiver ran down her spine at the sound of someone trying to open the front door.

Slipping on her discarded boots, which had weathered the chaos quite well, Lena tramped downstairs in her kimono and wet hair, took some money out of the till and went to open the door. Roulette towered over her, elegant and wily with an armful of bags.

“Company?”

“Perhaps,” Lena replied with a twitch of her lips as she handed over the wad of bills and took the bags.

Eyes roving over the kimono, Roulette’s eyes flickered darkly and she gave Lena a sharp smile. “I still want that back.”

“Maybe next time,” Lena breezily replied, a taunt in her voice. “Keep the change.”

“Aren’t you a dear.”

Snorting, Lena shut the door and locked back up, before making her way upstairs and locking the apartment door behind her. Dumping the bulging bags onto the coffee table, she moved to the kitchen and set a Moka pot with coarsely ground coffee beans on to brew, before going to wake the sleeping Valkyrie. Wary and on-guard, Lena loomed over Kara and studied her for a moment, before prodding her cheek.

There was no response, so she prodded her again, this time with a little zap of electricity, and leapt back as Kara bolted upright, sparks rippling across her skin as a gust of wind blew around her.

“Morning sunshine,” Lena said, a droll smile on her lips.

Rubbing at her eyes, Kara groaned her dishevelled hair a mess as it slipped out of its ponytail, her face imprinted with the seam of the blankets, and she took a moment to catch her bearings.

“What time is it?”

“It’s a little after seven.”

“In the  _ morning?” _

“No, you dolt, in the  _ night _ . Believe me, I wouldn’t give my bed up for anyone for a night. I’ve ordered Chinese food and then you can be on your way.”

“Chinese food?” Kara said, a note of hope in her voice as she blinked owlishly up at Lena, sleep still fogging her mind. “Did you buy potstickers?”

Fixing her with a cool stare, Lena arched an eyebrow, “obviously.”

Sighing heavily, shoulders slumping, Kara smiled with relief and swung her legs out of bed, nimble and spry for someone who had passed out and banged her head on the floor. There were no signs of injury, not even a slight bump or shadow of a bruise, and Lena eyed her with shrewd intensity as she ran through everything she knew about Valkyries. Healing was definitely part of their skillset.

“So … Valkyrie, any questions I can answer?” Lena conversationally started.

Wincing at the title, Kara slumped onto the divan and reached for the bag, the smell of food enticing. Lena watched her unpack everything, while she stirred the coffee almost bubbling over and filled two clay drinking bowls and carried them over to them. Fetching a pitcher of water and fresh glasses as well, she drained one glass and wolfed down an egg roll before Kara ventured her first question.

“Valkyrie,” Kara slowly said, testing the word in her mouth, “how’s that possible?”

“Odin picks them to collect his dead. That’s what that little raven mark is for on the back of your neck.”

Lena wiggled her finger in Kara’s direction as she took a sip of coffee and started on the carton of Mongolian beef. Reaching up to cup the back of her neck, Kara frowned slightly.

“But … how come I didn’t know about it? I mean … I feel different now, but surely … magic couldn’t have stopped all of this, right? I feel so … strong. It’s like there’s a storm inside me.”

“Mm, that’ll be the power to fly. Wield lightning. Summon storms and winds and all that. Don’t forget the power to resurrect people - I’d advise against doing that too often though. Unless it’s me, of course. Please feel free to always resurrect me. No offence to Odin, but I don’t fancy being picked as an  _ einherjar. _ There’s far too much prepping for Ragnorak and too much mead drinking for my liking, plus I’m shit with a sword.”

“Noted.”

With a flash of a smile, Lena picked up a piece of beef with chopsticks and then stole a potsticker from the box Kara was hoarding, chewing quickly and draining another glass of water. She felt jittery and hollow, quickly filling up on as much as she could before she downed another glass of witch wood absinthe and passed out for the day. She even considered opening the shop late the next day so she could recuperate, knowing that she’d be in a foul mood if dragged out of bed for customers at the crack of dawn. 

“Anyway, the magical blocker probably postponed the physiological changes of a fledgeling Valkyrie transforming once they become of age. Odin tends to choose his little champions of death at a young age; the blocker could’ve been put there by your parents to stem the chemical change magic would enact on your body, meaning you’d never have to take up the mantle.”

“And now what?”

Shrugging nonchalantly, Lena gave her a minute smile, “now you have to serve.”

Chewing slowly, Kara’s brow pinched with a brooding look of worry and confusion. “What does that entail?”

“I’ve met a couple of Valkyrie’s in my time,” Lena shrugged, “sometimes they come in here. From what I gather, you go about your life, and you just … fill a certain quota for the big guy. You get a cool uniform; silver armour and a winged helmet - it’s very tasteful, don’t worry - a nice sword, and you just drag dead people to Valhalla to wait out the inevitable doomsday that Odin’s worried about.”

“So … I can still teach?”

“Oh, definitely!” Lena encouragingly replied, “I’m sure they’ll be in touch with you shortly for training and the like. You’re probably a few years behind, but, being immortal, it won’t really be  _ that _ much of an issue.”

_ “Immortal?” _

With an exasperated sigh, Lena splayed one of her hands in a careless gesture,  _ “obviously.” _

“Oh. Okay. That’s … okay.”

“I’m sure you’ll have a great time. It’s got to be better than being stuck in a classroom every day, right?”

With a dark look, Kara inhaled half of the sweet and sour pork before deigning to reply. “Why don’t  _ you _ become one then? Sitting in a dusty shop can’t be much better than a classroom.”

“On the contrary,” Lena said, her eyes glittering with joy, “I get to experience things like this. Do magic. Work my own hours. Who wouldn’t want that?”

Falling silent, Kara wolfed down most of the food, her metabolism playing catchup for the changes wrought on her body and the effects of the drugs Lena had given to her. Lena answered more of her questions as they sipped coffee, and aside from a few nervous tics, Kara seemed quite composed for someone who had just had their lives turned around.

“Well, I guess that answers the tarot cards then,” Lena said as the long day came to a close and Kara started buttoning on her shirt. “Odin was the man - would you even say it’s accurate to call an ancient deity, all-father of an entire mythological pantheon, a man? Anyway, moving on, Valkyrie is your big identity reveal, the big change in your life. It’s safe to say you’re not scared of me anymore, right? No fear and anxiety there. And I’ve got rid of that gods awful cursed amulet for you, so your love life should be right on track. You’re welcome.”

With a wry smile, Kara slipped on her Birkenstocks and picked up her cardigan, folding it over one arm, “and what’s your price for this?”

Wrinkling her nose, Lena’s mouth twisted slightly and there was a flicker of regret inside. “Valkyrie’s don’t really have magical properties in their skin, and there’s not really a market for their blood. Too volatile - obviously. It’s easier to summon a storm than set off a Valkyrie blood bomb. So … I guess I’ll just be satisfied with a solved answer.”

“I guess I’ll just repay you with a free resurrection if you ever need it.”

“You’re a doll,” Lena dryly replied, giving her a quick wink.

As Kara fetched her bag and slung it over one shoulder, her new book peeking out of it, Lena moved over to a small box of business cards and pulled one out. It was thick and black, silver leaf glimmering in the dim light of the apartment, and Lena bit her lip before holding it out to Kara.

“Before you go … a new love charm for you. This one might actually work.”

Taking the card, Kara turned it over and frowned, “this is your business card.”

“Yeah.”

“Oh.”

Shrugging with a crooked smile on her face, Lena cocked her head to the side and gave her a goading look, full of intrigue and a small amount of desire - perhaps more - and rubbed the back of her neck.

“You might be a pain in the ass, but you’re definitely interesting. Maybe we could get dinner sometime; preferably  _ not _ after you destroy my apartment and pass out on my floor.”

With a shy laugh as she ducked her head, cheeks turning pink, Kara rubbed the back of her neck, and they both stood there for a moment before Kara tucked the card safely in her bag.

“Yeah, okay.”

“You can tell me all about Valkyrie training; I’m  _ dying _ to know what Freyja is like.”

“I’ll keep an eye out for her,” Kara said with amusement. “Hey, also … do you have any enemies amongst the Valkyrie’s? Or can a Valkyrie like … hurt you?”

Nudging her as she started for the door, Lena gave her a wicked smile over her shoulder, “not  _ yet _ , and only with their big, strong arms. I’m trusting you’ll defend me though; you should know I’m a complete coward in a fist-fight and prefer to get a hex in first.”

“What’s your name?”

Lena let out a loud laugh as Kara scooped up her cat behind her, her eyes trained on Lena’s back as she disappeared into the dark stairwell before she hurried to catch up after her. Walking her to the front door of her shop, Lena lingered in the doorway and gave her a faint smile as Kara stood on the sidewalk, bathed in moonlight and looking especially Nordic with her golden hair and ice-blue eyes.

“My name’s Lena,” she offered after a long moment.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Kara said after a long moment, brimming with delight as she tried to restrain a smile.

“You say that  _ now.” _

With a quiet laugh, Kara fiddled with her glasses and tugged at her cardigan, “I’ll call you?”

“Sure.”

“Okay … well, goodnight then.”

“Goodnight, Kara,” Lena murmured, a faint nod of fond warmth in her voice.

Nodding, Kara dawdled for a moment, slowly meandering backwards with the dark bundle struggling in her arms, before she turned around and walked away. Closing the door and locking everything back up, Lena let herself back into the cramped hallway, her skin crawling with the eyes watching her in the dark, and she wearily plodded upstairs, satisfaction leaving her feeling content and relaxed. 

Stepping into the apartment, she kicked off her boots and locked the door behind her before she met the watchful eyes of the cat sitting on one of the kitchen chairs staring at her. A cat that most definitely was  _ not _ hers. Lena let out a withering sigh as she closed her eyes and suppressed a groan.

_ “Fuck.” _


	3. Chapter 3

Bursting out onto the street, Lena looked both ways, a grim look on her face as she tried to find Kara and her kidnapped cat. There was no sight of the fledgeling Valkyrie in sight and she bit back a sigh of irritation and reached up for her amulet. Fingers finding the bloodstained  _ Choku Rei _ charm as latching onto the waning spark of magic that her blood had activated. It tingled through her fingertips as her  _ Reiki _ energy aligned and threads of auras bloomed to life around her, streaks of recent passersby and the ambling occupants of the streets as they slipped in and out of stores and buildings.

Looking around, Lena tried to sift through the smudges of colour, until she spotted a fresh streak of blue, like the sea, and straightened with purpose. It was still vibrant in the air and she followed it like a bloodhound on a scent, her pace quickening on the cracked sidewalk as the lateness of the night shrouded everything in shadows. Her heightened vision made for strange colours and shapes.

Kara couldn’t have gotten far in the few minutes it had taken Lena to realise that her cat had been switched and kidnapped, and with the brisk pace she set herself, following after the wisps of the aquamarine aura like it was a thread reeling in her prey, Lena soon came upon the blonde woman standing at an intersection on the corner. Relief that the chase had come to an end so soon, before she ended up halfway across town all for the sake of the nameless cat who was a bit prickly and actively ignored her, Lena paused for a moment, bending over as she braced her hands on her knees and drew in a deep breath.

“Hey!” she called out, straightening up and ruffling her fluffy hair and raising a hand in a wave as Kara turned around with a curious look on her face to see if the shout was for her.

At the sight of Lena, a dark figure in the night, save for the pale moon of her face, Kara’s eyebrows rose and she cocked her head to the side in confusion, waiting as Lena slowly ambled towards her, in no rush to run again. Gruffly clearing her throat as she stopped a few feet away, Lena gestured towards the black cat cradled in the crook of Kara’s arm, looking content and somewhat smug as her yellow eyes flashed in the dark. Biting back a curse, Lena’s mouth thinned.

“You took my cat.”

Eyes widening a fraction, Kara’s forehead quickly crumpled as she looked down at the cat, who looked back up at her. Raising the cat up to eye level, Kara narrowed her eyes, turning it this way and that, before she let out a snort of laughter.

“Well … that’s embarrassing.”

“Ungrateful bastard looks so smug. I bet she went willingly as well,” Lena grumbled, “as if I didn’t save her from the sacrificial knife by a bunch of dimwitted sorority druids last  Samhain . I should’ve let them skin you alive, moggy.”

She took the cat back as Kara handed her over, raising her up to eye-level and gently pressing them nose to nose as the cat blinked slowly at her, unperturbed and almost lazy as it let out a quiet  _ meow _ and pawed Lena’s cheek. Sighing, Lena shook her head and gave Kara an exasperated look as she clamped the runaway beneath her arm.

“You tracked me down quickly,” Kara noted. 

Waving a hand dismissively, Lena rolled her eyes, “your aura. Dead giveaway, and a useful tracking tool.”

The fizzling spark of magic lingering inside the amulet was waning though, her vision slowly dimming and blurring as the colours leached out of the world and monochrome shadows snuck back in. And it was undoubtedly going to leave behind another nasty headache. Lena had over-extended herself today, and she was looking forward to passing out and not even thinking about magic for the next twenty-four hours.

Of course, almost as if some God had a vendetta against her that Lena was unaware of, a spanner was thrown into the works of her plan when something fell out of the sky and landed heavily beside the two women, startling them both as the sidewalk cracked beneath the impact. Scrambling away, cradling the cat to her chest with a look of indignation on her face, Lena scowled at the newcomer as Kara keeled over backwards onto the sidewalk. 

White lightning arced across a silver breastplate embossed with a crow with spread wings, a cloak the colour of a midnight sky cascading from the shoulders like rippling darkness, the sweet smell of ozone in the air as the hairs on Lena’s arms prickled. The figure stood tall and imposing, a winged helmet covering her face as she stared at Lena with glittering dark eyes, a sword sheathed at her hip and the glimpse of a deep blue shirt beneath the breastplate and vambraces as she reached up to remove the helmet.

Kara was slowly climbing to her feet and inching towards Lena’s right shoulder, half a step behind her as she tried to use the witch as a shield against what stood before them. The hum beneath Lena’s skin made her body tingle and she watched with interest as the helmet was removed to reveal a tanned face and a long tangle of brown hair, threaded with plaits. Blinking in surprise, Lena let out a quiet chuckle.

“I know you,” she said, glancing back over her shoulder at Kara, who had grabbed a handful of Lena’s kimono and looked a little pale, “I know her.”

“Oh,” Kara weakly commented.

The woman smiled warmly, tucking her helmet under her shoulder as she looked at Kara with eagerness in the lines of her face, a brimming excitement as she took a step forward. “So,  _ you’re _ the new sister, huh? Normally they’re a little … younger.”

Making a small squeak of panic, Kara retreated further behind Lena, so close that Lena could feel the heat radiating from her, her shallow breaths ghosting against the back of her neck. “Do something.”

Eyebrows rising with amusement, Lena softly laughed, rotating her chest so she could get an arm around Kara and nudge her forward. Her interest was piqued and her exhaustion faded to the background as she found her whole body humming with adrenaline at the presence of the woman. A faint pulsing behind her eyes made itself known, and Lena knew she’d pay for it later, but it looked like her night was about to get even longer than anticipated, even as she tried to shirk any involvement. 

As exciting as the prospect of Kara being a Valkyrie was, Lena made it a personal rule to not get too involved in other people’s drama unless it benefited her. Right now, the only thing that could benefit her was a sleeping draught to knock her out cold and a sleep so deep that she entered the land of the living dead. A date with Kara was already in her cards, and she didn’t need to be all up in her business until that time came around. Lena wasn’t particularly fond of complications.

“She’s a  _ Valkyrie _ ,” Lena explained with a withering sigh, “your new brethren. And a customer at my store from time to time. I take it you’re not here for anything special this evening?”

Lena directed the last part towards the Valkyrie who gave her a wry smile, “just the newbie.”

“Excellent,” Lena said, nudging Kara forward, “well, here you are. She’s all yours. I’m going to take my cat home and enjoy the peace and quiet.”

“Wha- you can’t just leave me with her! I don’t even  _ know _ her!” Kara protested.

Shrugging as she stroked the dark fur of the cat’s head, Lena gave her a crooked smile, “sorry, I don’t want any part in this. Good luck though!”

“I’m just here to train you,” the Valkyrie said, shrugging nonchalantly.

“See? Harmless,” Lena agreed.

Spluttering, Kara crossed her arms over her chest, eyes narrowing slightly with apprehension. “Well, I don’t even know if I  _ want _ to be a Valkyrie. And no offence, but I don’t know you. How do I know you’re not going to kidnap me and teleport me to some different realm and truss me up for some ritual?”

With a snort of laughter, Lena arched an eyebrow and looked at the other woman. “That’s a little bit melodramatic, isn’t it? And cynical, Kara, doesn’t suit you at  _ all _ . No one’s going to use  _ you _ for some sort of ritual; your blood is volatile, we  _ just _ went through this when you blasted my apartment to pieces.”

“She’s right.”

Glancing at the Valkyrie, Lena  _ did _ narrow her eyes slightly with suspicion, a flicker of pity welling up inside as Kara was thrust into the middle of a world she didn’t really know all that well. So far, her experiences could be reduced down to reanimating her dead cat and finding out that she had been marked from a young age for a job that required a little bit more than lecturing bored students about dead cultures. If it was Lena, she would’ve been ecstatic at the chance to take the dead from battlefields and brawls gone awry and dump them off to train for  _ Ragnarok _ . 

But then again, she was a hedgewitch, born and raised. Nothing really rattled her anymore these days. This was the most excitement Lena had had in a while, most of her customers utterly boring and usually little more than curious non-believers. Not that she was in a hurry to delve into dangerous waters and black magics that would make her usual rituals and wards look like parlour tricks, but it did add a little bit of colour to her otherwise mundane life. As mundane as a magical shopowner and practising witch with a vast pool of knowledge could be, which, admittedly, wasn’t much. 

Besides, there was a flicker of pity inside her, and Lena bit back a groan as it grew inside her, expanding in her chest and softening her resolve. She chalked it up to the wide, innocent blue eyes of the fledgeling Valkyrie as she looked at Lena like a kicked puppy, wounded betrayal etched on her face. Grumbling a curse she didn’t quite know the meaning of, but was no less one of her favourites, under her breath, Lena let out a heavy sigh and gave the Valkyrie a shrewd look.

“What’s your name anyway?”

“Sam.”

“Oh, well … that’s a bit normal.”

Spreading her hands helplessly, she smiled slightly, “hey, I’m just a financial advisor when I’m not in uniform.”

Wrinkling her nose slightly, Lena’s eyebrows rose quickly before she dismissed Sam and turned to Kara. “See? A financial advisor. Look, how about you come back to mine, we can go up to my roof and you can learn how to fly and … I don’t know, reap the souls of the dead and the like, and then you can leave with  _ your _ cat this time. Hell, I’ll even let you practice judo kicks on me or whatever fighting style your lot uses.”

_ “Glima,” _ Sam supplied.

Snapping her fingers as she pointed at her, Lena solemnly nodded as she kept her eyes locked on Kara. “Exactly. Try to be gentle though; fixing broken bones is a bitch and I’m not sure I have the patience for it right now. It’s been an adventure of a day, and while I refuse to be bored - chiefly because I am  _ not _ a boring person - I’m very much looking forward to bed. So if we could hurry this along …”

Kara rocked back on her heels for a moment, teeth dragging along her bottom lip as she deliberated, caution in her sea-blue eyes as they darted from hedgewitch to Valkyrie and back. Finally, she sighed, shoulders drooping and gestured helplessly.

“Sure. Fine. I’ll do it. But … it’s not going to … hurt, is it?” Kara anxiously replied, directing her question towards Sam.

“You’re practically invulnerable now,” Sam simply stated, “it’ll take a few days for the changes to fully take over, and you might be a little sore tomorrow, but no worse for wear.”

“Great,” Kara glumly murmured.

Shifting the black cat up onto her shoulder, its tail flicking around the back of Lena’s neck to caress her other shoulder, she turned around and buried her hands in the pockets of her kimono and headed back the way she’d come. The two Valkyrie’s followed behind and the three of them made for a strange trio; one in a gown with a cat on her shoulders, a tall chooser of the slain in resplendent silver and deep blue, looking like a cosplaying knight, and a meek professor twisting the hem of her cardigan in her nervous hands as she scurried along behind Lena, almost glued to her side out of some sense of familiarity and comfort. 

Lena didn’t bother mentioning that she was undoubtedly the most dangerous of the three. Valkyrie’s may have been  _ practically invulnerable _ but everything had a weakness, and she wasn’t in the habit of letting any creatures get a leg up on her. In the back of her shop, in the locked room with the special supplies, there were at least a dozen poisons that would strip the flesh from their pretty bones if she deigned to do so. Luckily for them, Lena had no desire to be in Odin’s bad books. 

Setting a brisk pace to get them off the streets before they started to draw attention to themselves, before some of the more unsavoury figures lurking about could cause trouble for her, Lena was quick to unlock the worn front door of her little shop and usher the other two women in before her. Casting a wary glance out into the dark night, Lena retreated into the store and locked it back up, her skin itching with the expenditure of yet more magic.

Gently plucking the cat from her shoulder, Lena tucked her under one arm and wound her way through the collection of shelves and display tables, faint moonlight creeping in through the dusty, cluttered window and giving them minimal lighting to inch down the narrow path towards the door to the apartment upstairs. 

Pricking the pad of her finger on the nail and smearing a drop of blood on the doorframe, Lena selected the correct key from the bulging ring and jiggled it in the lock, before stepping into the dark. She set the cat down, sensing her slipping into the shadows, amidst the other living creatures that lived in the dark, eyes flashing as they watched her from their homes. As Kara and Sam filed in behind her and trapped them in the dark, Lena paused to catch a two-headed viper worming its way out of a box and securely shut it back inside and filed past a coffin that was home to a large quantity of grave soil currently growing a variety of plants that thrived off the nutrients riddling the soil of decomposed bodies. 

It gave the cramped hallway a dank odour, muddy and cloying as it mingled with dust and yellowed stacks of paper, and she didn’t linger as she climbed the creaking staircase and stepped into her apartment. Exhaustion made her shoulders slump as she stepped inside, Streaky blinking at them from his perch on the table as he licked a paw, and Lena was hit with the false sensation of bedtime. Unfortunately for her, her bed had to wait a little while longer.

Rubbing at her forehead, Lena walked to the kitchen and round to the window at the back of the building, cracking open the window to reveal a rusted fire escape holding a collection of plant pots with strange plants. She glanced back over her shoulder and waved a hand in a grand gesture like a magician revealing a trick.

“Should be easy enough for you both to get upstairs. I need a pick me up; can I get you anything?”

“No, thank you,” Sam courteously replied, brushing past her, mail clinking and metal rattling as she swung one leg up and out and ducked her head down to climb through. 

Kara sidled up beside Lena, whose face lit up with urgency as she turned back to the window, mouth falling open. “And mind the wisp trap,” she warned, right as Sam walked past a particularly big plant, somewhat similar to a venus fly trap, and watched as it lashed out and bit into a mouthful of spun wool, pulling the Valkyrie off the first rusted step. “It … bites.”

There was a loud ringing sound of metal on metal as Sam fell backwards, cursing loudly in Old Norse before her hand snatched out and throttled the tall stem of the plant. It let out a petulant his, baring sharp fangs as it let go, leaving a few gaping holes in the Valkyrie’s cloak. 

Lena shrugged apologetically as Sam shot to her feet and gave her an accusing look, mouth a thin line of annoyance. Prodding Kara forward, Lena left her to navigate her way past the hungry plant and went in search of something to drink. She had to bite back a smile, listening to the squeak of indignation and terror that drifted in from outside, followed by a series of hurried footsteps rattling the old fire escape, held to the side of the building with more than a touch of magic and a few rusty nails.

Fishing out a dusty green bottle, Lena wiped off the label and narrowed her eyes as she read the cursive French name on it, before deciding it would do. Rooting around in her collection of vials stored beside the oven, where the temperature was slightly warmer, she pulled out a murky brown substance that moved sluggishly and fished out a teaspoon and a big mug, before settling on a paperback copy of  _ Jikji _ , the world’s oldest published book - as far as the modern world was aware. As it was, Lena was looking to brush up on her  _ Hanja _ , and Buddhist Zen teachings seemed like an educational topic to whittle away the hours with as she watched the Valkyrie’s train.

Setting the mug and old bottle to float up behind her, Lena climbed out through the window and swatted the book at the wisp trap, giving it a stern look as she edged past it and hauled herself upstairs, leaving an orange stain on her palm. Tucking the book in her pocket she quickly raised her eyebrows at Kara, giving her a sharp smile, before moving over to the overwhelming spread of herbs and flowers illuminated by the overhead moon. 

She pretended to ignore Sam’s firm coaching, skirting around the edge of the rooftop as she checked on her prized plants, caressing them with a gentle fingertip, taking in their leaves and petals leached of colour beneath the bright moon. Two deck chairs stood in the middle of the roof, one striped red and white and the other blue and white, the colours faded from days spent beneath the searing sun, and Lena’s cup and bottle set themselves down to await her as she spoke to the plants in  _ Tikopia _ , watching them shift towards her at her gentle words of encouragement. 

With her back to the two women, hunched over a potter fire fern as it sparked embers that burned her fingertips as she pruned wilted leaves and sighed with annoyance, Lena eavesdropped on their conversation, straining to hear Sam’s voice over the sound of various vents and turbines cluttering the rooftop. Lugging a big pot from one side to the other, Lena plucked a half-empty tin watering can from the shadows of one of the adjoining buildings that rose six feet higher than her own store and sloshed the remaining water around inside.

Giving a sprinkle to all the plants that needed a little bit extra, she finally dusted off her hands and walked over to the deck chairs, taking a seat in the red one as it creaked and settled back. Feet stretched out before her, Lena picked up the dusty bottle and twisted off the cap, pouring a healthy dose of deep red wine into the mug. As she popped the cork from the small vial and patiently waited for the brown sludge to slide out, thick as molasses yet nowhere near as sweet, she watched as Sam ushered Kara up over the lip of the adjoining building’s roof.

It took some pushing and boosting to get the blonde up over the edge, her sandals flopping onto the concrete as her feet scrabbled against the brick walls, until she hauled herself up the rest of the way and flopped over the edge. It was only eight feet taller than Lena’s rooftop, if she had to guess, and Lena lounged on the deck chair, stirring the sluggishly thick bitterweed sap into a cup of deep red as she, watched Kara stand on the edge of the adjoining building’s roof while the Valkyrie stood below, hands on her hips as she looked up at the white-faced woman peering over the edge.

“Okay, now jump!” Sam called out, encouraging and radiating excitement.

“What?” Kara cried out, eyes widening, “I’m going to  _ fall _ .”

“You’ll be fine!”

Lena chuckled, taking a sip of her wine and wrinkling her nose at the undercurrent of bitterness tart on her tongue before she set her mug down and cupped her hands around her mouth. “Do a backflip!”

With a quiet snarl, Kara’s brow furrowed as she gave Lena a withering look, “that’s not helpful.”

Shrugging, Lena rooted around beneath the deck chair to pick up a small silver tin with neatly rolled cigarillos made with brown paper. Putting the filter end between her lips, she patted down her kimono pockets for a lighter and let out a grunt of annoyance, before sparking a flame at her fingertip and touching it to the end, lighting up the cigarillo like a cherry red coal in the night.

The glow of it illuminated her pale face, deep shadows pooling in the dips and hollows as she inhaled the taste of strawberries and summertime, the sugared end leaving her lips tasting sweet as she exhaled a faint plume of grey and lounged in the chair with her eyes glued on Kara. Lena watched her closely, and intensity to the hard lines of her face, her natural curiosity verging on something else entirely, a sense of hunger in the wolfish thinness of her face.

“Jump!” Sam egged her on, waving Kara down. “It’s fine. Trust me! The easiest way to get over the fear of falling is to give in to it; your flight will kick in.”

Taking a sip of her wine, Lena clamped the cigarillo between her lips as she pulled her book out of her pocket and folded the cover back, peering down at the first page as she let the Valkyrie’s get on with their back-and-forth. It was dark out, hard to see by, and Lena had to reach out for the humming electricity in the wiring around her and draw a ball of energy from it, the white sphere sparking and volatile as she directed it with a clawed hand like she was adjusting a lamp to see better.

She was halfway through her cigarillo and onto the third page of the book, Sam’s patience wearing thin and Kara’s surprising stubbornness holding out, when Lena was jolted from her peaceful reading by a heavy thud. Head jerking up with a severe look on her face, Lena’s eyes widened at the sight of Kara face down on the concrete. Alarm knifed through her, uncharacteristic and uneasy, and Lena slowly set her book aside and half-rose from the deck chair, the stub dangling from parted lips as she watched Kara push herself up with wide eyes.

_ “Ow,” _ Kara pointedly said, a forlorn look on her face, the bottom half of which was covered in blood from what looked like a decidedly broken nose. “You said I was going to  _ fly!” _

“I didn’t expect you to  _ nose dive _ off the edge of the roof!” Sam exclaimed, aghast as she dropped to one knee beside her, hands hovering nervously at Kara’s shoulder. “Shit. Are you alright?”

Wrinkling her nose and then wincing, Kara sheepishly smiled as her face redded nearly to the same depth as the blood. Stubbing out her cigarillo against the floor and flicking it aside, Lena exhaled grey as she lumbered towards Kara and sank down onto her haunches. A gentle finger tilted her head up as she narrowed her eyes.

“Mm, might be broken.”

“Healing factor should’ve kicked in by now,” Sam supplied.

“Might heal wonky if it’s not set.”

“I’m not a field medic.”

Kara spluttered, red mouth falling open in defeated complaint as her blue eyes shot Sam an accusing look. “I would  _ not _ suit a wonky nose.”

Shrugging, Lena gave her a crooked smile, “I don’t know, I think they add character.”

With a small sound of irritation at the back of her throat, Kara started to grumble as Lena cupped her chin in one hand and cocked her head to the side, threads of magic tentatively poking at the cartilage. 

“Oh, well as long as  _ you-” _

Invisible gossamer threads probed with a featherlight touch, felt by Lena but not by Kara, until Lena waved her hand in a quick jerking movement and set the cartilage straight mid-complained, leaving Kara speechless and grey-faced with shock. Nothing but a quiet squeak came from her mouth for a few moments as she blinked owlishly, unsure of what had happened, and Lena silently stared back at her expectantly.

“Ow?”

Sam produced a stark white handkerchief and handed it over to Kara, who wiped her mouth and chin with one hand as she prodded the tender flesh of her nose with a finger. Dusting off her hands, Lena gave her a satisfied smile and climbed to her feet.

“You could’ve given me some warning,” Kara thickly replied, taking the hands offered to her by both women as they hauled her to her feet.

“It’s better to do it when you’re least expecting it,” Lena airily dismissed, “trust me; I once had a troll crack  _ three _ of my ribs when I set their leg. Kicked me on three,  _ right _ in the chest. Since then I’ve found it’s better to do it and make yourself scarce before they can smash your skull in.”

“Well … thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” Lena waved dismissively, “like,  _ actually _ , please don’t mention it. If I have to listen to you complain about a broken nose that’s healing as we speak, I might pitch you off the side of the roof myself - and  _ then _ we’ll see how well you can fly.”

With a wounded look of embarrassment, Kara scuffed her bare foot over the rooftop, pouting slightly, “you know, for someone who gave me their number an hour ago to go out for dinner, you’re not very nice.”

Unaffected by the words, Lena shrugged and raised her eyebrows as her mouth thinned into a faint smile and her eyes creased. “Have to agree with you there, sweetheart,” Lena drawled, retreating back to the safety of her deck chair as she picked up her book. “But, I might not be a  _ nice _ person, but I am a  _ good _ person.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Kara relented, letting out a heavy sigh and turning back around. “Okay, well, time to give it another shot.”

“That’s the spirit!” Sam jovially replied, standing beside the wall and lacing her fingers to boost Kara up.

Returning to her book and her wine, Lena fumbled through the  _ Hanja _ as Kara leapt from the rooftop a handful of times, skinning palms, stumbling forward and doing anything and everything but flying as she flailed her arms like a baby bird.

It must have been the dozenth time that she jumped off the roof, gingerly wincing as she waited for the impending impact to jar her knees when it didn’t come. The absence of impact made Lena look up, a curious look in her green eyes as she blinked, staring at the figure spread-eagled and fraught with panic as she lay mid-air, a foot from the ground and tipping forward as she tried to centre her balance.

“Oh my God,” Kara breathed, voice hitching with exciting disbelief, “I’m … flying?”

“Floating,” Lena said with faint awe as she climbed to her feet, “let’s not be hasty. Bravo though; you actually did it.”

Folding her arms over her chest, Sam grinned like a proud parent, a smugness to her soft face as her hazel eyes sparkled with delight. “Persistence is key.”

“Okay, now how do I get down?” Kara asked.

It took much coaching and a few close calls for Kara to get the hang of it, made all the more easier as her abilities slowly kicked in, spreading through her body with a tingling itching that made her chafe against it, restlessly rolled her shoulders and flexing her fingers. Lena watched from the corner of her eye, fascinated by the confidence that slowly washed over her like water coming in at high tide, as Kara soon threw herself from the drop with reckless abandon.

The night wore on and a pleasant fuzziness spread through Lena’s body, a mellow hum in her bloodstream and a faint ringing sound in her ears as her heart fluttered quickly in her chest, egged on by the bitterweed keeping her body running on fumes. It wasn’t uncommon for Lena to be strung out for days, blinking back the dry ache behind her eyes in favour of some quest for knowledge or some once in a lifetime experience. Kara coming into her Valkyrie powers sat somewhere in between, and the hedgewitch was content to sit there until the sun came up, watching her get the hang of flying and of being tossed around like a ragdoll by Sam, who was surprisingly brawny, despite the willowy stature of her.

It was all rudimentary, as far as instruction went, of course, but Lena’s furtive glances revealed the strength hidden in Kara’s wiry muscles as it blossomed to life, the hesitant blows against Sam becoming more solid, harder, faster. Soon, they were blurs of flesh and armour, moving through friendly bouts of sparring interspersed with laughter and tips.

The rest of the night was quiet, a slight chill to the air, but nothing that wine couldn’t chase away, and it wasn’t too far off dawn when they called it quits and Sam handed Kara a business card with more details for training and induction. Lena gave the Valkyrie a curt nod as Sam wedged her helmet back on and raised her hand in farewell, before pushing off the rooftop with the quiet sound of cracking stone. Biting back a heavy sigh, Lena squinted at the spiderweb cracks radiating from where she’d stood, and knew that there would be a few others to take care of from their sparring, unwilling to let the roof cave in on her after the rest of the damage done to her apartment this past twenty-four hours.

Giving her a bright smile, Kara donned her cardigan and nervously cracked her knuckles as she walked over to Lena and flopped down onto the other deck chair beside her, looking contented and almost  _ happy _ .

“What are we drinking here?”

“The blood of the sacrificed.”

There was a moment’s pause as Kara turned almost green, shrinking back slightly as she eyed the brimming mug in Lena’s hand.

“Really?”

_ “No! _ It’s a merlot. No one wastes blood magic drinking blood. The white blood cells and antibodies in your own blood mess up any magical properties another’s blood contains,” Lena matter of factly explained, not looking up from her book as she thrust it out towards Kara. “Here. Drink, Valkyrie. You deserve it.”

Holding a hand up in defence, Kara gave her a wan smile, “oh, no, I can’t. I’ve got a lecture in the morning.”

“Dawn isn’t far off, you’re day’s going to be shit as it is, so have a drink with me. Watch the sunrise with your friendly neighbourhood witch, and I’ll send you off with a pick-me-up to make sure you can teach the children about … I don’t know, ancient aqueducts.”

Lips pressed into a flat line of grim amusement, Kara relented, her fingertips brushing the back of Lena’s scarred fingers as she took the offered mug and cradled it in her palms. Little scars marked the fingers but there was a long, narrow scar crossed the back of her right hand.

“Where did you get that?” Kara softly asked, head tilted to the side with open curiosity.

“This? Fighting a hydra.”

“I’d like a real answer.”

“A besotted nymph who just couldn’t let me go when I broke her delicate heart.”

“Lena.”

“A duel to the death. I won, of course.”

Kara’s laugh was shuddering and warm in the intimacy of the black, silent night as it wrapped around them, velvety soft and speckled with silver stars. “Well, I know  _ that’s _ not true. You said you’re terrible with swords.”

Feeling about for her cigarillo case, Lena made a small sound of agreement as she put one between her lips and carelessly flicked a finger to light the end, snapping the case shut and slipping it into her breast pocket. Taking a drag, wisps of grey curled from her mouth as she gave Kara a wry smile.

“I never said they were better than me,” she off-handedly replied, eyes sparkling with mirth.

“Is it possible for you to tell any story in which something normal happens?”

“So you like boring tales?”

“I like the truth,” Kara shrugged.

Scoffing, Lena resisted the urge to roll her eyes as she watched Kara tentatively sip the wine, tense caution in the lines of her shoulders as she sat primly on the deck chair, before realising it was wine - albeit a sour sort - and slowly settled down onto the canvas seat, letting the tension bleed out of her.

“What’s the point in the truth? It’s only true to the ones who  _ want _ to believe it anyway, so why not live life behaving a little eccentric, a little morally fraudulent, daredevil, stupid. Why not tell fanciful tales to squeeze a drop of excitement out of things? Otherwise what’s left? To wake up in the morning and meet the day with a scowl on my face and the knowledge that all the worlds in all the universes and everything  _ in _ them is intolerably fucked?”

“That’s a bit of a bleak outlook on life.”

With a wan smile, Lena raked her fingers through her hair as she inhaled and breathed out a plume of smoke, watching it vanish as a gentle breeze whisked it away. “Sometimes I think I was born a sceptic, far too cynical and jaded for my own good. Other times, I think it’s because of my fondness for drinking.”

“It’s most likely a bit of both,” Kara said with an uneven smile as Lena met her eyes.

Expression softening, Lena nudged her with her knee, “yeah, maybe.”

With a heavy sigh, Kara tipped her head back and looked up at the sky, still speckled with quicksilver stars as it started to lighten, already deep indigo as a greyish light crept into the world ever so slightly, bleeding into the darkness and lifting it just a touch.

“And now what do we do?”

Closing her eyes for a moment, Lena ran the butt of the cigarillo over her bottom lip, tasting strawberries and summer on her tongue as the faint sound of cicadas called out in the pre-dawn stillness of the world, as if the planet held its breath.

“Now … you’re a Valkyrie. And I’m a witch. And we’re going to enjoy the sunrise while we feel all those secret emotions that early morning brings. And after, if you like, I can make you breakfast and lend you some clothes and you can go to work. And after that … maybe we could get that dinner and I can tell you the definitely true stories behind all of my scars. But only on one condition.”

“What?” Kara asked with a smile in her voice.

“You don’t steal my cat this time.”


End file.
